HE  OCEAN 

\iad  its  M^ 


mm 


I. HYATT  YERRILL 


THE  OCEAN  AND  ITS  MYSTERIES 


(Courtesy  Universal  Motion  Pictures) 

THE   DEPTHS   OF   THE   SEA 
A  diver  exploring  an  old  wreck 


The  Ocean 
and  Its  Mysteries 


BY 

A.  HYATT  VERRILL 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

DUFFIELD   &   CO. 
1917 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  Dupfield  &  Co. 


CONTENTS 


-V 


V 


CHAPTER  PAGB 

Introduction v 

I.    The  Depths  of  the  Sea  .        .        .        .        i 
II.    Currents  and  Streams  .        •        .        .16 

III.  Derelicts  and  Icebergs  ....      36 

IV.  Tides  and  Waves 60 

V.    Safeguards  of  the  Sea  .        .        .        .80 

VI.  Life  in  the  Great  Depths    ...      99 

VII.  Life  at  and  Near  the  Surface    .        .     121 

VIII.  The  Story  the  Sea  has  Told     .        .    148 

IX.  The  Battle  Between  Sea  and  Land  .     165 

X.  Human  Life  Under  the  Sea      .        .176 


435148 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
The  Depths  of  the  Sea    ....     Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Relief  Map  of  the  Sea  and  Land     ...  4 

The   Gulf  Stream 20 

A  Derelict 36 

A  Chart  Showing  the  Wonderful  Drift  of 
the  DereHct  Schooner  Fannie  E.  Wol- 

ston 46 

A  Waterspout  at  Sea 74 

The  Death 90 

Weird  Fish  from  the  Ocean  Depths     .     .  106 

Forms  of  Surface  Life 124 

Serpuline  Atolls  at  Bermuda 140 

Pages  from  the  Sea's  Story 158 

The  Beginning  of  a  Coral  Island  Showing 
*  Corals  Growing  on  a  Reef  Exposed  at 

Low  Water  . 172 


INTRODUCTION 

The  ocean,  that  vast,  restless  expanse  of  water 
which  covers  three-fourths  of  our  earth's  sur- 
face, has  ever  been  an  interesting  theme;  a 
thing  of  wonder,  romance  and  mystery. 

Even  to-day,  when  science  has  solved  many 
of  the  mysteries  of  the  sea  and  when  great  iron 
steamships  have  made  the  ocean-lanes  almost 
as  well  travelled  and  as  definite  as  city  boule- 
vards, we  still  experience  a  sort  of  awe,  a  tin- 
gling of  suppressed  excitement  and  a  feeling 
that  we  are  approaching  the  mysterious  and 
unknown  when  we  set  forth  on  an  ocean 
voyage. 

To  the  younger  generation  the  sea  appeals 
particularly  and  few  indeed  are  the  healthy- 
minded  boys  who  do  not  love  tales  of  pirates 
or  buccaneers  or  yarns  of  wrecks,  castaways 
and  other  stories  of  the  sea. 

Fascinating  as  are  the  romances  and  mys- 
teries of  the  sea,  scarcely  less  interesting  are 
the  actual  facts  about  the  ocean,  for,  when  it 


X  INTRODUCTION 

relates  to  the  sea,  the  "truth  is  stranger  than 
fiction." 

It  is  to  tell  the  real  truths  about  the  sea  in 
a  simple,  concise  and  entertaining  way  that 
this  book  has  been  written.  Although  many 
volumes  have  been  published  in  regard  to  the 
explorations,  discoveries  and  investigations  of 
the  ocean  and  its  life  and  countless  reports 
have  been  issued  filled  with  wonderful  and  in- 
teresting facts  relating  to  the  sea,  its  bed  and 
its  wonders,  yet  most  of  these  books  are  so 
technical  in  character,  so  dry  and  so  filled  with 
statistics,  figures  and  scientific  terms  that  they 
prove  far  from  entertaining. 

In  the  present  work  I  have  endeavoured  to 
bring  out  all  the  most  noteworthy  and  impor- 
tant facts  about  the  ocean  and  its  life,  its  depths 
and  surface,  its  currents  and  tides,  its  bottom 
and  its  waves  without  burying  them  beneath  a 
mass  of  formidable  terms  and  figures.  In  ad- 
dition much  has  been  included  in  regard  to 
wrecks,  derelicts  and  icebergs  and  other  men- 
aces of  "those  who  go  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships,"  as  well  as  to  the  various  safeguards  of 
the  sea  which  protect  the  mariner  from  the  in- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

numerable  dangers  besetting  him  on  every  side. 

With  all  our  knowledge  of  the  sea  and  its 
life,  with  all  the  progress  and  advancement 
we  have  made  through  modern  science  and  in- 
vestigation, many  unsolved  mysteries  remain 
and  no  one  realises  this  more  than  the  scientist 
himself.  It  is  not  necessary  to  look  to  fiction 
for  entertaining  stories  of  the  sea,  for  the  an- 
nals of  the  shipping  and  the  navies  of  the 
world,  the  records  of  scientific  expeditions  and 
the  government  reports  are  filled  with  unim- 
peachable, truthful  accounts  of  incidents  and 
happenings  which  are  as  mysterious  as  any 
the  wildest  imagination  could  conjure  up. 

For  many  years  I  spent  my  summers  at  va- 
rious stations  of  the  United  States  Fish  Com- 
mission or  on  the  ships  which  were  engaged 
in  deep  sea  exploration  and  research  work  in 
the  North  Atlantic.  There,  in  the  impression- 
able days  of  my  youth,  I  was  surrounded  by 
the  greatest  scientists  engaged  in  the  study  of 
marine  life  and  ocean  exploration.  Such  men 
as  Baird,  Goode,  Bean,  Verrill,  Smith,  Jor- 
dan, Morse,  Hyatt,  Rathbun,  directed  the 
work  and  carried  on  their  investigations  and 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

researches  in  the  laboratories  and  there,  boy- 
like, I  made  my  childish  collections.  At  a 
laboratory  table  I  assorted  and  labelled  my 
specimens,  used  my  microscope  and  absorbed 
a  vast  deal  of  useful  information  while  aided 
and  encouraged  by  the  scientists  who  have 
been  foremost  in  giving  the  world  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  ocean's  depth  and  its  wonderful 
life. 

Many  hours  were  thus  employed  in  the 
shore  laboratories  and  many  days  were  spent 
at  sea  upon  the  Bluelight,  Speedwell,  Fish- 
hawk  and  Albatross  as  they  cruised  back  and 
forth  in  the  Gulf  Stream  or  the  Arctic  Cur- 
rent, sounding,  dredging  and  trawling  far 
from  land. 

At  each  haul  of  the  dredge  or  trawl  new  and 
remarkable  forms  of  life  were  drawn  up  from 
the  ocean's  depths,  for  in  those  days  little  was 
known  of  deep-sea  life  and  staid,  dignified 
scientists  became  as  excited  and  enthusiastic  as 
schoolboys  when  some  strange  creature,  new 
to  science,  was  dumped  upon  the  deck  after 
being  lifted  for  hundreds  of  fathoms  from  the 
wonderland  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

Like  every  youngster  I  always  wanted  to 
know  how  and  why  ^'the  wheels  went  round" 
and  my  insatiable  appetite  for  information 
was  freely  and  fully  satisfied  by  the  good- 
natured  officers  and  crew,  who  took  the  great- 
est pleasure — and  no  doubt  obtained  plenty  of 
amusement  as  well — in  explaining  the  mean- 
ing of  charts,  signals  and  buoys,  the  operation 
of  the  compass  and  sextant,  the  mechanism  of 
engines  and  machinery  and  in  pointing  out  the 
importance  of  waves,  winds,  tides  and  cur- 
rents. 

Oftentimes,  when  the  dredging  and  trawl- 
ing was  over  and  the  ship  headed  for  port 
with  her  load  of  natural  history  prizes,  the 
crew  would  foregather  on  the  "fo'c's'le"  and 
the  grizzled  old  men-o'-warsmen  would  vie 
with  one  another  in  entertaining  the  "Profes- 
sor's Kid"  with  deep-sea  yarns. 

One  memorable  summer  was  passed  at  a 
lighthouse-service  station  and  there  I  found 
never-ending  sources  of  entertainment  and 
amusement  in  company  with  a  boy  companion 
whose  father  commanded  the  lighthouse  ten- 
der Anemone.    To  watch  the  great  buoys  be- 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

ing  prepared  and  placed,  to  visit  the  light- 
ships and  lighthouses  on  the  tender  and  to  be- 
come intimately  familiar  with  the  thousand- 
and-one  details  of  safeguarding  lives  and  ships 
was  fascinating  in  the  extreme. 

But  all  this  paled  into  insignificance  when 
the  stern-faced  commander  stretched  himself 
in  a  steamer-chair  beneath  his  ship's  awnings 
and  with  the  two  boys  seated  at  his  side,  told 
true  stories  of  adventure  on  the  seven  seas. 
No  book  of  fiction,  no  Clark  Russell  sea-tale, 
was  ever  half  so  thrilling  as  those  stories  of 
shipwreck,  of  naval  battles,  of  Malay  pirates 
and  of  hair-breadth  escapes  in  which  the  nar- 
rator had  actually  taken  part.  Little  did  his 
hearers  dream  that  in  later  years  a  figure  in 
America's  next  war  would  be  this  story  teller 
— Admiral  Schley. 

Knowing  the  interest  which  the  sea  and  its 
life  held  for  me  when  a  boy,  I  believe  that  it 
will  still  prove  interesting  to  the  boys  of  to- 
day, and  I  have  endeavoured  to  write  a  book 
such  as  I  would  have  appreciated  in  my  own 
youth.  I  have  tried  to  explain  the  matters 
which  once  puzzled  me,  to  tell  the  most  in- 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

teresting  facts  in  a  simple  way,  to  touch  on  the 
mysteries  and  unknown  things  of  the  sea  and  in 
short  to  produce  a  volume  which  will  give  my 
readers  a  true  and  correct  knowledge  of  the 
ocean  and  its  life,  from  its  restless  surface  and 
wave-washed  shores  to  its  vast  depths  and  sub- 
merged mountain-chains. 


THE  OCEAN  AND  ITS 
MYSTERIES 

Chapter  I 

THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA 

Did  you  ever  think  what  a  strange  sight  would 
be  presented  if  the  ocean  should  be  drained 
away  and  we  could  gaze  upon  its  dry  bed? 
It  would  indeed  be  a  wonderful  scene  and  yet 
probably  not  one  person  in  thousands  would 
find  the  appearance  of  the  vast  ocean-bed  in 
the  least  as  he  had  pictured  it  in  his  imagina- 
tion. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  totally 
different  from  anything  we  have  ever  seen, 
heard  or  known.  We  cannot  imagine  an  ab- 
solutely new  form,  a  new  colour  or  a  new 
sound,  for  even  in  our  wildest  flights  of  fancy 
or  our  weirdest  dreams  everything  bears  some 
resemblance  to  some  well-known  or  familiar 
object.     But  if  we  were  able  to  look  forth 


2  THE  OCEAN 

upon  the  great  area  now  occupied  by  the 
waters  of  the  ocean  and  could  wander  over 
the  vast  bed  of  the  sea  we  would  surely  see 
many  things  which  would  be  totally  different 
from  anything  we  had  ever  seen,  or  imagined. 

In  the  depths  of  the  sea  lie  the  greatest  of 
the  ocean's  mysteries,  and  while  for  many 
years  vast  sums  of  money  and  an  immense 
amount  of  time  have  been  expended  in  explor- 
ing the  ocean  depths,  yet  we  really  know  very 
little  about  them. 

To  be  sure  we  have  made  countless  sound- 
ings throughout  the  seven  seas,  we  have 
dredged  and  trawled  in  stupendous  depths, 
we  have  recorded  pressures  and  temperatures 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean;  from  the  mys- 
terious depths  we  have  drawn  weird,  strange 
forms  of  life  and  we  have  made  charts,  maps 
and  models  of  the  ocean's  bed;  but  after  all, 
what  does  it  amount  to?  We  know  that  cer- 
tain places  have  certain  depths,  that  there  are 
elevated  and  depressed  regions,  that  in  some 
spots  there  are  certain  kinds  of  material  at  the 
bottom  and  that  some  of  the  denizens  of  the 
sea  are  of  certain  forms,  but  all  this  gives  us 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA       3 

no  real  idea  of  the  bottom  of  the  sea"  Sup- 
pose we  imagine  an  aeroplane,  or  an  airship, 
from  some  distant  planet  soaring  miles  above 
our  earth  and  hidden  from  view  by  impenetra- 
ble clouds.  Imagine  such  an  airship  drop- 
ping weighted  lines  downward  to  our  earth's 
surface,  dragging  nets  across  our  plains  and 
mountains,  gathering  samples  of  our  soils  and 
plant  life  by  tiny  grapples  and  grease-coated 
weights.  Would  such  methods  give  the  be- 
ings in  the  aircraft  a  true  idea  of  the  appear- 
ance of  the  earth,  of  its  flora,  its  animal  life 
and  its  details;  would  maps  prepared  from 
data  thus  obtained  be  accurate  charts  of  the 
earth's  topography;  would  learned  volumes 
written  by  the  crew  of  the  airship  and  based 
on  the  material  they  gathered  throw  any  great 
light  upon  the  appearance,  life  or  formation 
of  our  land?  Of  course  it  would  not,  and  yet 
by  such  methods  alone  do  we  know  anything 
of  the  ocean  depths  which  cover  three-fourths 
of  the  entire  surface  of  the  globe. 

It  is  marvellous  that  we  have  accomplished 
so  much;  that  we  should  have  learned  even 
the  little  we  do  know  of  the  vast  areas  deep 


4  THE  OCEAN 

beneath  the  waves  and  not  one-tenth  enough 
credit  has  been  given,  not  a  tithe  of  the  de- 
served honours  bestowed  upon  the  scientists 
who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  this  work. 
Patiently,  quietly,  painstakingly  these  men 
have  laboured  year  in  and  year  out  to  solve 
in  some  measure  the  mysteries  of  the  ocean 
depths  and  without  remuneration,  without 
recompense  and  with  no  hope  of  reward  they 
have  given  their  knowledge  and  their  discov- 
eries to  an  unappreciative  world.  To  such 
men  as  Darwin,  Agassiz,  Verrill,  Dana,  the 
Prince  of  Monaco  and  many  lesser  authorities 
we  owe  a  debt  which  can  never  be  repaid,  for 
through  their  labours  and  researches  we  have 
learned  all  we  know  of  the  mysterious  world 
beneath  the  sea  and  of  its  more  mysterious  life- 
From  the  work  carried  on  by  scientists  and 
oceanographers  we  know  much  of  the  charac- 
ter and  formation  of  the  ocean's  bed.  We 
know  that  beneath  the  level  surface  of  the 
great  ocean  the  face  of  our  planet  is  as  irreg- 
ular, as  rough  and  as  diversified  as  upon  the 
continents  and  islands  that  rise  above  it.  There 
are  submerged  plains  and  valleys,  great  table- 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA        5 

lands  and  plateaus  hidden  by  hundreds  of 
fathoms  of  water;  vast  mountain  chains  with 
their  topmost  peaks  far  beneath  the  restless 
waves  and  enormous  depressions  and  mighty 
canons  so  deep  that  the  loftiest  of  our  moun- 
tains— the  towering  Alps,  the  cloud-piercing 
Andes  or  even  Mount  Everest  itself — might 
be  dropped  into  the  deep  and  their  summits 
would  disappear  beneath  many  fathoms  of 
water.  This  may  sound  like  an  exaggeration, 
but  off  Porto  Rico  dredging  has  been  done  in 
over  four  thousand  fathoms  (24,000  feet), 
and  spots  have  been  sounded  which  were  over 
nine  miles  in  depth  in  the  South  Atlantic.  It 
is  indeed  a  difficult  matter  to  imagine  the  vast- 
ness  of  these  great  submarine  plains,  the  ter- 
rific abysses  and  fathomless  canons,  the  preci- 
pices and  abrupt  slopes  which  exist  beneath 
the  sea. 

One  cannot  conceive  of  the  grandeur  such 
scenes  would  present  if  bared  to  human 
eyes.  For  example,  the  low-lying  Bahama 
Islands  give  us  no  impression  of  the  tremen- 
dous heights  and  marvellous  immensity  of  the 
ocean-bed  about  them.     Should  this  portion 


6  THE  OCEAN 

of  the  sea  be  exposed  to  view  we  would  see  a 
stupendous  slope  twelve  thousand  feet  in 
height  stretching  for  seven  hundred  miles  and 
forming  the  precipitous  edge  of  an  immense 
triangular  plateau  five  hundred  miles  in 
length  and  two  hundred  miles  in  width,  cut 
by  deep  canons  and  with  its  southern  edge 
crowned  with  the  Sierra  Maestra  of  Cuba 
which  would  rise  twenty-eight  thousand  feet 
above  the  ocean  floor. 

As  a  rule  the  ocean  near  the  coast  of  the 
continents  is  comparatively  shallow  and  the 
depth  increases  very  gradually  for  some  dis- 
tance from  land.  This  broad,  shallow  area  is 
known  as  the  "Continental  Shelf"  and  with 
the  shore  islands,  which  are  portions  of  the 
shelf  that  rise  above  sea  level,  it  forms  a  part 
of  the  continent  it  borders.  The  continental 
shelf  varies  in  width  and  depth  in  different 
parts  of  the  ocean,  but  as  a  rule  it  corresponds 
more  or  less  with  the  character  of  the  shore 
above  the  sea.  Thus,  on  the  Atlantic  coast  of 
America,  the  shelf  is  broad  and  level  like  the 
slope  of  the  continent  itself,  whereas  on  the 
Pacific  side  it  is  narrow  and  steep  like  the 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA       7 

short,  abrupt  slope  of  the  western  coast.  Be- 
yond the  limits  of  these  continental  shelves  the 
bottom  usually  drops  very  rapidly  to  great 
depths,  often  to  two  thousand  fathoms  or  more 
in  a  short  distance. 

Along  our  Atlantic  coast  from  Cape  Hat- 
teras  to  George's  Banks  the  width  of  the  con- 
tinental shelf  varies  from  fifteen  miles  at  Cape 
Hatteras  to  nearly  one  hundred  miles  off 
southern  New  England,  while  on  the  Grand 
Banks  off  Maine  the  shelf  extends  out  for 
nearly  two  hundred  miles.  Here  and  there 
wide  tongues  or  inlets  extend  towards  the  coast 
through  this  gently-sloping  plateau,  and  off 
Cape  Cod,  Maine,  and  Cape  Sable  the  true 
ocean  depths  extend  to  within  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  of  the  shores.  Between  Cape  Hatteras 
and  the  Bahamas  there  is  a  vast  triangular 
plateau  sloping  gradually  from  the  shore  to  a 
depth  of  six  hundred  fathoms  and  then  dip- 
ping sharply  to  the  floor  of  the  Atlantic. 
Along  the  coasts  the  one  hundred  fathom  line 
runs  almost  parallel  to  the  shore  from 
George's  Banks  to  Hatteras,  and  almost  paral- 
lel with  this  line  and  at  no  place  over  fifteen 


8  THE  OCEAN 

miles  from  it  the  one  thousand  fathom  line 
extends.  From  this  latter  contour  line  to  the 
two  thousand  fathom  limit  the  slope  is  less 
abrupt.  It  varies  from  forty  miles  off 
George's  Banks  to  one  hundred  miles  off  New 
Jersey  and  is  narrowest  off  Hatteras,  where  it 
sweeps  in  to  within  about  fifteen  miles  of  the 
coast. 

Off  the  southern  coast  of  New  England  the 
continental  shelf  slopes  very  gradually  to  the 
one  hundred  fathom  line,  but  here  it  falls  off 
abruptly,  forming  a  steep  bank  known  as  the 
Gulf  Stream  Slope,  from  the  fact  that  it  forms 
the  western  edge  or  boundary  of  the  Gulf 
Stream. 

Although  a  great  many  islands  are  merely 
elevations  of  these  plateaus  which  rise  above 
the  shallow  water,  yet  other  islands  rise  very 
abruptly  from  great  depths.  Many  of  these 
are  merely  the  tips  of  volcanic  mountain  peaks 
whose  greatest  masses  lie  hidden  far  beneath 
the  sea  and  which,  if  raised  to  sea  level,  would 
make  our  mightiest  mountains  appear  like 
mere  hills.  In  many  of  these  islands  the 
slopes  are  so  abrupt  that  there  is  practically 


_     THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA       9 

no  shallow  water  and  in  some  places  a  person 

may  stand  on  the  shores  and  drop  a  line  into 

a  thousand  fathoms  or  more  of  water.    Where 

these  islands  are  of  volcanic  formation  they 

often  contain  active  volcanic  craters  and  are 

liable  at  any  time  to  be  partially  submerged 

or  to  be  suddenly  raised  many  feet  above  their 

I   present  level.     Indeed,  a  great  many  of  them 

\  are  constantly  rising  or  falling,  although  the 

I  motion  may  be  so  slow  and  gradual  as  to  pass 

1  unnoticed.     Wherever  there  is  an  active  vol- 

1  jcano  sudden  and  violent  changes  are  liable  to 

1    occur  and  we  have  ample  proof  that  numerous 

/    volcanic  islands  have  been   repeatedly  sub- 

^^Itif  rged  and  then  raised  again  for  hundreds  of 

feet  during  past  ages. 

On  some  of  the  West  Indian  islands,  for 
example,  one  may  find  fossil  coral-reefs,  shells 
and  other  forms  of  marine  life,  similar  to  those 
which  exist  to-day,  far  up  on  the  forest-covered 
mountain-sides,  proving  that  at  some  period 
the  land  has  been  raised  far  above  the  level 
that  it  occupied  when  the  reefs  were  formed. 
Moreover,  in  many  cases  these  fossil  corals 
alternate  with  layers  of  lava  and  volcanic  ash, 


lo  THE  OCEAN 

affording  ample  proof  that  not  only  once  but 
many  times  the  islands  have  been  raised  and 
sunk;  each  growth  of  coral  indicating  a  period 
of  submergence  and  each  layer  of  ash  and  lava 
telling  of  a  time  when  the  blazing,  molten 
matter  from  the  crater  poured  down  and  cov- 
ered the  marine  growths  which  had  been 
raised  from  their  ocean  bed. 

Such  sudden  and  immense  alterations  in  the 
islands  of  the  world  are  not  all  happenings  of 
the  dim  and  distant  past.  Even  within  a  few 
years  large  islands  have  been  suddenly  lifted 
above  the  sea  in  the  Pacific  by  some  subter- 
ranean upheaval ;  in  some  cases  to  remain  per- 
manently, in  others  to  disappear  almost  as 
suddenly  as  they  appeared. 

Knowing  that  such  things  take  place  above 
the  sea  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  similar 
great  changes  do  not  occur  beneath  the  ocean, 
and  no  doubt  mountain-chains  are  formed, 
vast  chasms  opened,  peaks  levelled  and  other 
great  alterations  made  in  the  ocean  bed  of 
which  we  know  absolutely  nothing.  Perhaps 
the  violent  distant  earthquakes  which  are  fre- 
quently  recorded   by  our   instruments   may 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA      n 

indicate  the  great  convulsions  of  nature 
which  are  taking  place  in  the  depths  of  the 
seas. 

Still  another  class  of  islands  are  known  as 
"coral  islands,"  but  in  a  way  this  is  a  mis- 
nomer and  is  confusing,  for  most  of  the  so- 
called  coral  islands  are  the  summits  of  solid, 
rock-formed  mountains  which  are  merely 
coated  with  coral.  Corals  of  the  kinds  which 
form  these  islands  cannot  live  at  depths 
greater  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  and 
hence  it  is  impossible  for  corals  to  rear  an 
island  from  great  depths  to  the  surface  of  the 
sea.  But  where  there  is  a  submerged  moun- 
tain-top or  an  elevation  rising  to  within  thirty 
fathoms  of  the  surface  the  corals  grow  upon 
it  and  gradually  accumulate  until  the  summit 
is  awash.  Then  the  action  of  winds  and  waves 
pulverises  the  coral,  piles  it  in  rows  and  dunes 
and  gradually  forms  an  island  whose  sands, 
through  countless  ages,  become  solidified  into 
coral-limestone.  Such  an  island  may  be  raised 
still  further  by  subterranean  forces  and  in  time 
a  mass  of  solid  coral-rock  may  be  formed 
which  is  several  hundred  feet  above  the  sea. 


12  THE  OCEAN 

The  Bermudas  and  the  Bahamas  are  of  this 
character. 

We  must  not  think  of  the  submarine  land- 
scape as  hard,  firm  land  or  rocks,  for  in  most 
places  it  is  covered  by  a  deposit  of  ooze  many 
feet  in  depth.  This  ooze  is  soft,  impalpably 
fine  and  slimy  and  is  composed  of  the  minute 
skeletons  of  countless  billions  of  tiny  marine 
animals.  In  places  where  the  slopes  are  steep 
or  the  currents  run  swiftly,  the  bottom  may  be 
hard,  bare  rock;  at  other  places  of  less  depth 
it  may  be  sand  or  gravel,  while  large  portions 
of  the  ocean  bed  are  covered  with  a  deposit 
ofjbroken  shells,  coral,  sand,  or  mud. 

Near  the  shores  and  in  shallow  water  the 
bottom  may  be  fairly  well  lighted  by  the  sun's 
rays  that  penetrate  the  water,  but  in  the  great 
depths  no  light  ever  reaches  the  bottom  and 
thousands  of  fathoms  beneath  the  surface  lies 
a  world  of  eternal  night;  of  Stygian,  inky 
blackness. 

"  Few  people  realise  the  conditions  which  ob- 
tain in  this  strange  submarine  world  or  con- 
ceive of  the  stupendous  pressure  which  the  im- 
mense depth  of  water  produces. 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA      13 

As  the  weight  or  pressure  of  sea  water  is 
well  known  we  can  readily  compute  the  pres- 
sures at  the  greatest  depths  and  we  know  that 
at  a  depth  of  one  thousand  fathoms  the  pres- 
sure must  amount  to  about  one  ton  to  the 
square  inch,  while  at  three  thousand  fathoms 
it  is  over  three  times  as  great.  Such  pressures 
are  almost  beyond  our  imagination  and  are  so 
tremendous  that  thick,  solid  wood,  when  low- 
ered to  the  depths  of  the  sea  is  pressed  full  of 
water  and  will  not  float,  while  thick  glass  or 
metal  globes  with  a  small  internal  empty 
space,  after  being  lowered  to  these  depths,  are, 
when  again  raised  to  the  surface,  found  filled 
with  water,  the  liquid  actually  having  been 
forced  through  the  surrounding  material  by 
the  pressure  on  every  side.  We  can  scarcely 
conceive  of  animals  existing  under  such  con- 
ditions, but  in  reality  they  are  no  more  incon- 
venienced by  the  pressure  of  the  water  than 
are  creatures  on  land  troubled  by  the  pressure 
of  the  air. 

Moreover,  here,  far  below  the  reach  of  day- 
light, the  temperature  of  the  water  never 
changes  and  remains  forever  almost  at  the 


14  THE  OCEAN 

freezing  point.  Even  in  comparatively  shal- 
low watGT  the  temperature  varies  but  slightly 
and  under  the  equator  the  water  in  the  deep 
sea  is  scarcely  warmer  than  at  the  Arctic  and 
Antarctic  Circles. 

All  these  facts  we  know  from  actual  investi- 
gation, for  by  means  of  weights  attached  to 
strong  piano-wire,  self-registering  thermom- 
eters, pressure-recorders  and  other  specially- 
designed  instruments  we  have  learned  a  great 
deal  about  the  conditions  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea. 

Even  the  simple  matter  of  sounding  and 
securing  samples  of  the  bottom  at  great  depths 
was  a  most  difficult  problem  to  solve.  If  a 
large  rope  or  line  was  used  it  required  enor- 
mously heavy  weights  to  carry  it  straight  to 
the  bottom,  arid  if  weights, of  sufficient  size 
to  sink  the  line  were  used  they  would  be  too 
heavy  to  draw  up  without  the  cable  giving 
way  under  the  strain.  At  last  means  were  de- 
vised for  lowering  an  iron  tube  to  the  bottom 
by  means  of  a  cannon-ball  or  other  heavy 
weight  which  was  provided  with  a  trip  or 
catch  which   released   the  weight  when   it 


THE  DEPTHS  OF  THE  SEA      15 

touched  bottom  and  thus  left  only  the  tube  and 
the  sample  of  the  bottom  it  caught  to  be 
drawn  up. 

At  first  thought  one  would  not  consider  it 
such  a  difficult  matter  to  drop  the  various  in- 
struments and  apparatus  over  a  ship's  side, 
draw  them  along  the  bottom  and  haul  them 
in,  but  when  we  consider  the  miles  of  cable 
required  and  its  weight  we  can  appreciate  the 
difficulties  encountered  by  the  earlier  investi- 
gators and  we  can  understand  why  special  ma- 
chinery and  appliances  were  necessary  before 
any  great  results  could  be  accomplished  in 
deep-sea  work. 

We  would  imagine  that  this  world  of  ooze, 
darkness  and  cold  would  be  a  dead,  uninhab- 
ited waste  and  for  many  years  the  foremost 
scientists  believed  this  to  be  the  case.  But  we 
now  know  that  this  is  not  true  and  that  while 
the  very  deepest  abysses  of  the  ocean  are 
scarcely  inhabited,  at  least  by  any  forms  of  life 
that  we  can  capture,  yet  in  most  places  the 
ocean's  bed  fairly  teems  with  myriads  of 
strange  creatures,  the  majority  of  which  the 
eye  of  man  has  never  seen. 


Chapter  II 

CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS 

Ever  since  man  first  ventured  to  embark  upon 
the  sea  in  crude  skin  boats  or  hollowed-out 
logs  the  ocean  has  been  a  thing  of  mystery. 
Its  vast  expanse,  its  loneliness,  its  irresistible 
power  and  its  uncertain,  ever-changing  moods 
have  always  impressed  mankind  with  wonder 
and  a  vague  fear  of  the  unknown. 

In  olden  days  sailors  peopled  the  sea  with 
mermaids,  mermen  and  strange  and  impossi- 
ble sea-monsters  and  related  stories  of  weird 
and  remarkable  adventures.  Even  to-day, 
when  great  steamships  plow  the  oceans  in  ev- 
ery direction  and  every  nook  and  corner  of  the 
seas  is  known,  deep-sea  sailors  spin  wonderful 
yarns  and  almost  yearly  some  one  tells  in  all 
seriousness  of  having  seen  a  sea-serpent. 

We  know  that  many  of  the  stories  of  the  sea 
are  purely  imaginary  and  that  mermaids  and 
many  other  sea-monsters  are  mere  myths,  but 

i6 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      17 

the  fact  remains  that  we  really  know  very  little 
of  the  sea  or  its  inhabitants  and  that  many  of 
the  ocean's  greatest  mysteries  still  remain  un- 
solved. 

Standing  upon  the  shore  or  on  the  deck  of 
a  ship,  and  gazing  upon  the  great  expanse  of 
water  that  stretches  to  the  horizon,  it  is  very 
hard  for  us  to  realise  that  the  ever-restless 
surface  before  us  is  composed  of  countless 
great  rivers,  some  flowing  in  one  direction  and 
some  in  another. 

These  ocean  rivers,  many  of  which  are  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  times  as  large  as  the 
Amazon,  are  known  as  "Ocean  Currents,"  and 
many  of  them  flow  in  courses  almost  as  defi- 
nite and  as  regular  as  the  rivers  on  land, 
although  their  banks  are  only  water  which 
cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  rivers  them- 
selves. 

If  you  sail  east  or  southeast  in  a  steamer 
from  New  York  or  Boston  you  will  ruotice  that 
a  day  or  two  after  leaving  port  the  dull,  green- 
ish water  changes  to  a  clear  and  sparkling 
indigo-blue,  and  if  you  have  set  sail  during 
cold  weather  you  will  find  that  as  soon  as  your 


i8 


THE  OCEAN 


ship  enters  this  wonderfully  blue  water  the 
air  becomes  a  great  deal  warmer. 

This  change  in  the  colour  of  the  sea  and  in 
the  temperature  of  the  air  proves  that  you  are 
in  the  Gulf  Stream,  one  of  the  largest  and  most 
wonderful  of  all  the  great  ocean  rivers.     The 


pyy 


•rc"- 


THE  GREAT  OCEAN  CURRENTS 

Gulf  Stream  is  so  called  because  it  starts  or 
"rises,"  so  to  speak,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  although  we  cannot  see  it  move  yet  it  flows 
steadily  northward  so  rapidly  and  with  such 
a  strong  current  that  you  would  find  it  very 
diflScult  to  row  a  boat  against  it.  Even  the 
speed  of  great  steamships  is  so  affected  by  this 
stream  that  when  travelling  south  the  captains 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      19 

always  avoid  it  and  when  coming  north  they 
keep  in  it,  for  the  great  river  travels  silently 
along  through  its  ocean  channel  at  from  three 
to  eight  miles  an  hour  and  ships  sailing  in  it 
lose  or  gain  that  much  speed,  according  to  the 
direction  in  which  they  are  moving. 

For  mile  after  mile  and  league  after  league 
this  mighty  stream  flows  northward  towards 
the  Arctic  Ocean,  swinging  towards  the  east 
and  finally  losing  itself  and  mingling  with  the 
waters  of  the  surrounding  ocean  off  the  coast 
of  northern  Europe. 

Although  you  would  scarcely  call  it  warm, 
were  you  to  dip  your  hands  in  it,  yet  this 
enormous  ocean  river  is  so  much  warmer  than 
the  surrounding  water  that  it  has  a  wonderful 
effect  upon  the  atmosphere  and  the  climate 
of  the  countries  near  which  it  passes.  Indeed, 
so  tremendous  is  the  volume  of  warm  water  in 
the  Gulf  Stream  that  it  has  been  estimated  that 
it  carries  enough  heat  to  melt  down  a  solid 
mass  of  iron  the  size  of  Mount  Washington 
every  twenty- four  hours. 

This  is  more  readily  understood  when  we 
realise  that  the  average  surface  temperature 


20  THE  OCEAN 

of  the  Gulf  Stream  is  83°  F.  with  a  bottom 
temperature  of  45°  and  that  through  the  Flor- 
ida Straits  alone  over  four  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  trillion  tons  of  this  heated  water  flow 
northward  daily.  Even  a  larger  amount  finds 
its  way  out  through  the  Windward  Passage, 
the  Bahama  Channel  and  other  passages  into 
the  Atlantic,  and  year  after  year  and  century 
after  century,  this  huge  warm  river  flows 
through  the  ocean. 

At  times  strong  winds  or  storms  may  churn 
the  surface  of  the  ocean  and  cause  the  waters 
of  the  stream  and  the  surrounding  sea  to  min- 
gle, but  this  happens  only  near  the  surface, 
and  a  few  fathoms  beneath  the  current  flows 
along  in  an  almost  unvarying  course. 

Sometimes,  when  sailing  across  the  Gulf 
Stream,  one  may  note  its  presence  by  steam  or 
vapour  above  its  surface  which  is  caused  by  the 
warm  air  rising  from  the  stream  meeting  the 
cold  wind  blowing  across  it, — exactly  as  our 
warm  breath  looks  like  steam  in  the  frosty 
air  on  a  cold  winter's  day.  At  intervals, 
and  after  long  periods  of  calm  weather, 
the  edge  of   the   Gulf   Stream  may  some- 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      21 

times  be  seen,  sharply  outlined  against  the 
duller  waters  of  the  surrounding  ocean. 
When  such  conditions  occur  the  curved  and 
irregular  course  of  the  stream  appears  like  a 
ribbon  of  brightest  blue  winding  through  the 
sea,  and,  looking  downwards  from  a  steamer's 
deck,  passengers  actually  may  watch  the  ship 
enter  the  great  river  and  even  may  see  half  of 
the  vessel  in  the  blue  water  of  the  Gulf  Stream 
and  the  other  half  still  in  the  dark,  dull  ocean 
water  which  forms  its  banks.  Usually,  how- 
ever, the  transition  from  the  ordinary  water 
to  that  of  the  stream  is  very  gradual,  for  at  the 
surface  the  waves  and  winds  cause  the  warm 
and  cold  waters  to  mingle  and  it  is  hard  to  say 
at  just  what  point  the  ship  enters  the  stream. 

Every  hour  that  the  ship  travels  further 
into  the  Gulf  Stream  the  air  becomes  warmer 
and  soon  the  passengers  find  themselves  in  a 
mild  and  balmy  climate,  even  though  wintry- 
winds  may  whistle  about  the  buildings  in  the 
cities  from  which  they  sailed  and  the  land,  a 
couple  of  hundred  miles  distant,  may  be  cov^ 
ered  with  snow.  To  have  a  home  in  or  be- 
yond the  Gulf  Stream  would  be  to  live  in  a 


22  THE  OCEAN 

climate  of  perpetual  June  and  this  is  what  ac- 
tually occurs  in  Bermuda.  Although  no  far- 
ther south  than  our  Central  Atlantic  states,  yet 
frost  is  unknown  in  Bermuda  and  all  sorts  of 
tropical  flowers  and  fruits  thrive  out  of  doors 
throughout  the  winter. 

As  the  ship  sails  southward  in  the  Gulf 
Stream  many  bits  of  yellowish-brown  seaweed 
may  be  noticed  floating  on  the  surface  and  the 
farther  south  one  travels  the  more  of  this  weed 
will  be  seen.  Sometimes  it  will  appear  in 
great  masses  stretching  for  acres  over  the 
water,  now  and  then  visible  on  every  hand 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  and  in  places 
so  thick  and  matted  and  in  such  wide  areas 
that  the  ocean's  surface  looks  like  a  great,  yel- 
low meadow.  If  some  of  the  weed  is  fished 
up  it  proves  to  be  a  rather  pretty  plant  with 
golden-brownish  leaves  and  little  round  ber- 
ries or  fruits  and  quite  different  from  any  or- 
dinary sea  weed.  This  plant  is  known  as  Sar- 
gassum  and  it  grows  upon  the  surface  of  the 
sea  instead  of  being  attached  to  the  rocks, 
shores  or  bottom  of  the  ocean  like  other  ma- 
rine plants. 


CURRENTS.^AJiD -STREAMS     23 

Between  the  West  Indies  and  Africa  there 
is  a  large  area  of  the  ocean  where  there  is  little 
current, — a  sort  of  ocean  back-water, — and 
here  the  sargassum  grows  upon  the  surface  in 
immense  masses,  but  never  thick  enough  to 
stop  any  ship,  and  steamers  sail  regularly 
across  the  very  centre  of  this  ''Sargasso  Sea/' 
as  sailors  in  olden  times  called  the  spot.  Sail- 
ors were  greatly  afraid  of  it  and  believed  ships 
could  not  sail  through  it  and  told  marvellous 
tales  of  vessels  that  had  become  entangled  in 
the  weed  and  drifted  about  forever.  They 
pictured  this  mythical  place  as  filled  with 
wrecks, — a  regular  ocean  graveyard, — and 
thought  the  weed  was  so  strong  that  men  could 
walk  about  on  it. 

Sailing  vessels  Jo  avoid  the  -Sargasso  Sea,' 
but  it  is  not  on  account  of  the  yellow  weed  but 
because  the  portion  of  the  ocean  where  it  is 
thickest  is  an  area  of  calms  and  light  winds. 
In  the  days  of  sailing  ships  the  question  of 
winds  was  of  the  greatest  importance  and  the 
early  navigator  soon  learned  that  in  various 
parts  of  the  ocean  the  winds  blew  from  certain 
directions,  during  part  of  the  year  at  least,  and 


24  THE  OCEAN 

that  by  sailing  in  such  places  they  could  be 
sure  of  a  fair  strong  wind.  In  other  places 
they  learned  that  the  winds  were  usually  very 
light  and  baffling  or  that  calms  prevailed 
most  of  the  time  and  consequently  they  tried 
to  avoid  such  places  as  much  as  possible. 

The  winds  which  blew  steadily  in  one  direc- 
tion we;re  called  Trade  Winds  because  they 
helped  the  trade  of  ships  with  foreign  coun- 
tries, while  the  calm^spat^^' were  called  Dol- 
drums. When  a  few  days  out  from  New 
York,  on  a  southern  trip,  odd,  fleecy  little 
clouds  may  be  noticed  hanging  in  long  rows 
about  the  horizon  and  if  the  Captain  is  asked 
about  them  he  will  say  they  are  Trade  Clouds, 
and  that  the  ship  is  getting  into  the  Northeast 
Trades,  By  this  he  means  that  the  vessel  is  in 
the  area  where  the  winds  blow  steadily  and 
strongly  from  the  northeast,  and  all  sailors 
know  that  the  pretty  little  trade  clouds  are 
sure  signs  of  the  trade  winds,  which  hold 
steady  and  strong  during  most  of  the  year  and 
that  a  ship  sailing  '4n  the  trades"  may  be  rea- 
sonably sure  of  good,  strong,  sailing  breezes. 

These  Northeast  Trades  blow  north  of  the 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      25 

equator,  but  south  of  the  equator,  or  "across 
the  line"  as  sailors  say,  there  are  other  trade 
winds  known  as  the  Southeast  Trades. 

Between  these  two  trade  winds  is  an  area 
where  the  winds  are  usually  light,  variable 
and  irregular  and  where  long  periods  of  calm 
prevail.  This  is  the  Doldrums  and  in  the 
days  when  all  commerce  was  carried  on  by 
sailing  ships,  vessels  were  often  delayed  there 
for  days  or  weeks. 

If  the  Gulf  Stream  is  followed  south  it  will 
lead  at  last  to  the  Straits  of  Florida,  where  it 
issues  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  between  the 
western  end  of  Cuba  and  the  Florida  Keys. 
It  is  from  this  spot  that  the  stream  starts  forth 
on  its  long  journey  and  by  studying  a  map  of 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  it  is  easy  to  discover  why 
the  great  current  flows  out  through  the  Florida 
Straits  and  into  the  north.  As  the  trade 
winds  blow  steadily  and  almost  continuously 
from  the  east  they  blow  or  push  the  surface 
of  the  water  ahead  of  them  and  this  water, 
carried  ever  westward  by  their  force,  finds  its 
way  between  the  various  West  Indian  islands 
into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.    As  the  gulf  is  en- 


26  THE  OCEAN 

closed  by  solid  land  on  all  but  the  eastern  side 
the  water  cannot  move  further  west  and  as  the 
pressure  from  the  east  continues  it  finds  its 
outlet  in  the  only  available  opening,  which  is 
the  Florida  Straits. 

But  a  very  large  quantity  of  water  flows  out 
between  the  various  West  Indian  and  Bahama 
islands  before  it  is  forced  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  Through  the  Windward  Passage, 
between  Haiti  and  Cuba;  the  Crooked  Island 
Passage;  the  Mariguana  Passage;  the  Santa- 
ren  Channel  and  other  openings  among  the 
Bahamas,  strong  currents  of  water  flow  north 
and  west  to  add  their  quota  to  the  mighty  bulk 
of  the  Gulf  Stream. 

Although  it  cannot  be  seen  that  the  water 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  higher  than  that  on 
the  outside,  yet  it  can  be  proved  by  visiting 
the  little  islands  which  form  the  eastern 
boundary  of  the  Caribbean  Sea  and  which  are 
known  as  the  Lesser  Antilles.  These  islands 
are  but  a  few  miles  apart  and  while  on  their 
western  or  leeward  sides  the  sea  is  calm  and 
smooth,  on  the  eastern  or  windward  side  the 
surf  beats  on  the  beaches  in  great  white-crested 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      27 

rollers  and  the  palm  trees  thrash  and  bend  to 
the  stiff  trade  wind.  Between  the  islands,  in 
the  narrow  channels,  the  water  is  rough  and 
choppy  and  runs  like  a  mill-race  towards  the 
west  as  it  is  forced  past  the  islands  by  the 
strong  northeast  wind.  On  the  Atlantic  or 
windward  side  the  tide  rises  and  falls  regu- 
larly for  five  or  six  feet,  but  on  the  leeward  or 
gulf  side  of  the  same  islands  there  is  scarcely 
any  difference  between  high  and  low  water, — 
only  a  few  inches  or  a  foot  or  two  at  the  most. 
This  seems  very  odd  and  remarkable  at  first 
and  if  we  stop  to  think  about  it  we  must  real- 
ise that  when  the  tide  is  low  on  the  windward 
side  of  the  islands  it  must  be  several  feet  be- 
low that  on  the  leeward  side  where  it  does  not 
fall,  and  this  proves  that  the  water  in  the  Car- 
ibbean Sea  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  actually 
higher  than  that  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean  outside. 
Although  at  first  it  may  appear  as  if  the 
water  on  one  side  of  the  islands  must  be  five 
or  six  feet  higher  than  on  the  other  side,  yet 
this  is  not  actually  the  case,  for  a  portion  of 
the  water  does  run  out  against  the  trade  wind, 
but  before  much  of  it  can  escape  through  the 


28  THE  OCEAN 

narrow  openings  between  the  islands  and 
against  the  wind,  the  tide  turns  and  forces  it 
back.  In  fact  the  amount  of  water  that  runs 
back  is  so  inconsiderable,  that  the  level  of  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  remains  only  about  three 
feet  above  that  of  the  ocean,  as  has  been 
proved  by  careful  surveys  and  observations. 

The  trade  winds,  however,  are  not  the  only 
cause  of  the  Gulf  Stream  and  similar  cur- 
rents, for  the  water  of  the  ocean  is  itself  con- 
stantly in  motion,  owing  to  the  revolution  of 
the  earth  upon  its  axis  and  the  variation  in 
temperature  between  the  cold  water  of  the 
arctic  regions  and  the  warm  water  near  the 
equator.  As  heated  water  expands  and  rises 
and  cold  water  contracts  and  sinks  there  is 
constantly  an  interchange  of  water  between  the 
polar  and  the  equatorial  regions  which  causes 
the  warm  water  in  the  tropics  to  flow  north 
and  south  to  replace  the  colder  and  heavier 
water  from  the  arctic  and  antarctic  regions. 
As  the  earth  revolves  upon  its  axis  from  west 
to  east  and  as  the  water  is  free  to  move  it  slips 
backward  as  the  earth  turns,  or  in  other  words 
moves  slowly  westward,  just  as  part  of  the 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      29 

water  on  the  surface  of  a  revolving  grind- 
stone slips  backward  on  the  surface  of  the 
stone  instead  of  travelling  along  with  it. 

If  there  were  no  land  masses  in  its  path  the 
water  of  the  oceans  would  all  move  round  and 
round  over  the  surface  of  the  earth,  while  at 
the  same  time  flowing  slowly  north  and  south 
from  the  equator,  but  as  the  earth  moves 
faster  near  the  equator  than  at  the  poles  the 
motion  from  east  to  west  would  vary  accord- 
ing to  the  distance  from  the  equator.  Thus, 
at  the  equator,  the  earth  moves  practically  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  a  minute 
while  in  temperate  latitudes  it  moves  only 
about  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  a  min- 
ute and  at  the  poles  it  moves  far  slower.  As 
the  currents  of  water  moving  north  or  south 
reach  portions  of  the  earth's  surface  which 
are  moving  slowly  and  as  this  water,  when  it 
left  the  equator,  was  moving  rapidly  towards 
the  east,  it  has  a  tendency  to  travel  faster  than 
the  earth  itself,  thus  forming  a  current  from 
west  to  east.  The  cold  water  from  the  north 
and  south,"fcoming  from  portions  of  the  earth 
which  are  revolving  slowly  and  reaching  re- 


t. 


30  THE  OCEAN 

gions  where  the  earth  revolves  rapidly,  have 
a  tendency  to  lag  behind  and  flov^  towards  the 
west.  This  cold  water  being  confined  by  the 
continent  in  its  westward  flow  and  by  the  Gulf 
Stream  to  the  east,  follows  along  the  coast  to- 
wards the  south,  and  is  known  as  the  Arctic 
Current.  Although  a  vast  amount  of  this 
cold  water  reaches  the  tropics  and  gradually 
mingles  with  the  warmer  waters,  yet  even  a 
larger  amount  comes  from  the  Antarctic  seas, 
for  the  contour  of  the  bottom  of  the  ocean's 
bed  prevents  a  large  part  of  the  north  polar 
water  from  flowing  south.  In  the  case  of  the 
air  these  same  things  occur  and  it  is  these  phe- 
nomena which  produce  the  strong  easterly 
trade  winds  near  the  equator  and  the  stormy 
westerly  winds  in  the  north  and  south  polar 
regions,  so  in  reality  the  trade  winds  them- 
selves and  the  ocean  currents  which  they  pro- 
duce are  both  due  to  the  revolution  of  the 
earth  upon  its  axis  and  to  the  fact  that  cold 
water  or  air  contracts  and  sinks  while  warm 
water  or  air  expands  and  rises. 

As  the  air  is  not  prevented  from  moving 
freely  by  obstacles  in  its  path  the  wind  cur- 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      31 

rents  are  regular,  but  the  water,  moving  in 
much  the  same  manner  and  being  still  fur- 
ther pushed  along  by  the  winds,  cannot  con- 
tinue to  flow  in  the  direction  in  which  it 
starts  because  of  the  various  continents  and 
islands  in  its  pathway  and  hence  it  flows  in 
the  direction  of  the  least  resistance  and  fol- 
lows, more  or  less,  the  shores  of  the  lands 
towards  north  and  south. 

Although  it  is  only  within  comparatively 
recent  years  that  scientists  h^ve  studied  the 
Gulf  Stream  and  have  made  systematic  sur- 
veys and  explorations  of  this  great  ocean 
river,  yet  it  has  been  known  for  many  cen- 
turies. Even  Columbus  noticed  the  current 
and  later  navigators  were  familiar  with  it. 
The  first  chart  of  the  Gulf  Stream  was  pub- 
lished by  Benjamin  Franklin,  however.  When 
the  great  statesman  was  Postmaster  General 
of  the  Colonies  he  noted  that  the  Royal  Mail 
packets  took  a  longer  time  to  cross  the  ocean 
than  did  the  ships  sailing  to  and  from  Massa- 
chusetts and  Rhode  Island.  A  conference 
with  various  captains  resulted  and  the  Ameri- 
can skippers  stated  that  they  sailed  in  the 


32  THE  OCEAN 

stream  or  current  when  travelling  eastward 
and  took  care  to  avoid  it  when  travelling 
westward.  Franklin  considered  this  of  great 
importance  and  with  the  aid  and  informa- 
tion furnished  by  whaling  captains  he  pre- 
pared and  published  a  chart  of  the  Gulf 
Stream.  This  chart,  although  crude  and  in- 
correct, in  view  of  our  present  knowledge,  was 
excellent  for  its  day  and  gave  a  fairly  good 
idea  of  the  general  speed,  direction  and  size 
of  the  warm  ocean  current  that  flows  into 
the  North  Atlantic  from  the  Caribbean  and 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  Gulf  Stream 
follows  up  the  coast  of  our  continent,  and  in 
the  Pacific  another  similar  current,  known 
as  the  Japan  Stream,  flows  north  along  the 
coast  of  Asia  just  as  the  Gulf  Stream  follows 
along  our  own  coast.  South  of  the  equator, 
and  flowing  in  the  same  direction  as  the  south- 
east trades,  are  other  currents.  One  of  these 
flows  south  along  the  coast  of  South  America 
and  is  known  as  the  Brazilian  Current  while 
another  moves  southward  around  Australia 
and  is  called  the  East  Australian   Current. 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      33 

In  the  south-seas  there  are  still  other  great 
ocean  streams  which  flow  easterly,  for  in  the 
broad  sweep  of  the  South  Pacific  and  South 
Indian  oceans  there  is  open  water  completely 
around  the  earth  and  no  land  interferes  to 
check  the  flow  of  water  from  the  south  polar 
regions  which  flows  north  to  take  the  place 
of  the  warm  water  of  the  Brazilian  and  East 
Australian  currents.  A  large  portion  of  this 
great  mass  of  cold  water  travels  northeast, 
strikes  the  western  coast  of  South  America 
and  is  deflected  to  the  west,  where  it  mingles 
with  the  warm  water  of  the  equatorial  cur- 
rent and  forms  the  Australian  Current  An- 
other vast  amount  of  cold  water  travels  up 
along  the  western  coast  of  Africa  and  forms 
the  Benguela  Current,  while  still  another  of 
the  south-polar  streams  flows  west  of  Aus- 
tralia around  the  Indian  Ocean  and  between 
Africa  and  Madagascar  and  forms  the  Mo- 
zambique Current,  These  three  currents,  in 
combination  with  the  East  Australian  and 
Brazilian  currents,  form  immense,  almost- 
circular  ocean  rivers  far  more  regular  than 
either  the  Gulf  Stream  or  the  Japan  Stream, 


34  THE  OCEAN 

and  they  have  a  tremendously  important  bear- 
ing upon  the  climates  of  the  countries  whose 
shores  they  wash.  Indeed  a  great  many 
of  the  most  productive  and  fertile  por- 
tions of  the  earth  would  be  barren  and  unin- 
habitable were  it  not  for  these  ocean  streams 
to  which  most  people  give  so  little  thought. 
Thus,  if  it  were  not  for  the  arctic  current 
which  flows  along  our  eastern  coast,  New  York 
would  have  a  semi-tropical  climate,  for  it  is 
in  the  same  latitude  as  southern  Italy  and 
Spain.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  course  of 
the  Arctic  current  or  the  Gulf  Stream  should 
be  altered  and  the  cold  water  from  the  north 
should  be  diverted  towards  Europe,  Dublin 
and  London  would  have  the  cold,  dreary 
climate  of  Labrador  and  Newfoundland.  So 
also,  on  our  Pacific  coast  the  warm  water  of 
the  Japan  Stream  gives  to  British  Columbia 
and  Oregon  a  mild,  pleasant  climate,  al- 
though these  places  are  as  far  north  as  New- 
foundland. Could  man  manage  to  alter  the 
courses  of  any  of  these  great  ocean  currents 
he  could  change  the  climate  of  continents  and 
produce  perpetual  summer  where  now  the 


CURRENTS  AND  STREAMS      35 

land  is  locked  in  snow  and  ice  throughout 
the  long  winter  months.  It  is  fortunate  that 
this  cannot  be  accomplished  however,  for  no 
one  could  foresee  what  terrible  catastrophe 
might  result  from  even  the  slightest  interfer- 
ence with  the  established  course  of  these  ocean 
streams. 


Chapter  III 

DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS 

I  HAVE  already  mentioned  the  Doldrums, 
that  portion  of  the  ocean  where  the  airs  are 
light  and  baffling,  and  where  sailing  ships 
sometimes  drifted  for  a  long  time  without 
finding  a  breeze  to  carry  them  on  their  course. 
As  this  is  the  hottest  portion  of  the  ocean  the 
sailors  often  suffered  terribly,  as  their  ves- 
sels rose  and  fell  with  flapping,  empty  sails 
for  day  after  day  and  no  breath  of  wind  ruf- 
fled the  surface  of  the  smooth  and  brassy 
sea.  Even  the  awnings  gave  little  relief ;  the 
water  in  the  casks  became  hot,  foul  and  rot- 
ten; the  pitch  in  the  deck-seams  boiled  and 
bubbled  and  the  captains  and  crews  almost 
went  mad  while  they  drifted  helplessly 
along  and  waited  for  a  breeze  to  carry  them 
out  of  the  Doldrums  and  into  the  trade  winds. 
At  such  times  the  mariners  tried  to  pass 
away  the  weary  hours  by  swapping  stories  of 
.  36 


c 

CD 

a 

o 
o 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      37 

the  sea.  They  told  of  the  ^Tlying  Dutch- 
man," of  ships  that  floated  about  forever, — 
their  sails  and  cordage  bleached  and  rotten, 
their  sides  overgrown  with  weeds  and  moss 
and  their  decks  manned  by  crews  of  ghosts 
and  skeletons.  They  told  of  sea-serpents,  of 
wonderful  sea-monsters  and  of  '^Corposants," 
"St.  Elmo's  Fire,"  and  of  many  other  weird 
and  uncanny  things. 

Sailing  ship  mariners  were  an  imaginative 
lot  and  many  of  their  tales  were  made  out 
of  whole  cloth,  but  on  their  long  voyages  the 
men  actually  saw  many  strange  and  myste- 
rious things.  Most  of  these  are  now  well 
known  and  have  been  explained  and  reasoned 
out  by  modern  science,  but  a  great  many  hap- 
penings at  sea  are  as  mysterious  and  inexplic- 
able as  ever.  Science  tells  us  that  the  strange, 
pale  lights  and  balls  of  fire  which  dance  about 
on  the  rigging  of  ships  in  the  tropical  nights 
are  "electrical  phenomena,"  but  that  doesn't 
explain  them,  and  it  is  a  very  hard-headed  and 
matter-of-fact  scientist  indeed  who  doesn't  feel 
"creepy"  and  whose  spine  doesn't  tingle  when 
he  sees  a  great,  round  fire-ball  rolling  along 


38  THE  OCEAN 

the  rail  of  a  ship  or  poising  on  the  end  of  a 
yard-arm,  or  when  tongues  of  green  and  blue 
flame  dance  from  masts  and  rigging  or  even 
from  the  heads  and  bodies  of  the  men. 

Disabled  ships  often  float  for  long  periods, 
and  the  sailors,  seeing  these  sodden,  weed- 
grown,  ocean  waifs,  easily  peopled  them  with 
ghosts  and  spirits.  From  such  sights  and  fan- 
cies grew  the  yarns  of  ghost-ships,  Flying 
Dutchmen,  the  Ancient  Mariner  and  other 
tales.  While  we  know  that  these  stories  were 
not  true  the  fact  remains  that  abandoned  ships 
known  as  Derelicts  always  are  floating  about 
in  the  ocean  and  do  wander  hither  and  thither 
as  if  manned  and  steered  by  invisible  hands. 

Perhaps,  sometime,  you  may  see  one  of 
these  derelicts  as  you  speed  across  the  broad 
ocean  in  a  great  passenger  ship  and  if  you  do 
you  will  find  it  a  sad  and  pitiful  sight  in- 
deed. A  lonely,  black,  weather-beaten  hulk 
rolling  slowly  to  the  ocean  swells,  its  sides 
green  and  weed-grown,  its  torn  and  tangled 
rigging  hanging  in  tatters  over  the  sides  and 
its  decks  and  broken  rails  peopled  by  scream- 
ing sea-birds. 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      39 

Looking  upon  this  sodden,  desolate  mass, 
this  drifting  corpse  of  a  once-stately  and  beau- 
tiful ship,  we  wonder  what  tragedy  of  the 
sea  lies  hidden  in  her  storm-wracked  skeleton. 
Perhaps  her  men  were  saved  by  some  passing 
vessel,  perhaps  they  took  to  the  boats  and 
died  a  slow  and  miserable  death  of  thirst  and 
starvation  upon  the  vast  expanse  of  ocean; 
but  like  as  not  their  fate  will  never  be  known ; 
the  derelict  will  never  be  identified  and  some 
trim  revenue  cutter  will  send  her  to  the  bot- 
tom, a  mystery  of  the  sea ;  one  of  those  "miss- 
ing ships"  which  sail  forth  yearly  never  to 
be  seen  or  heard  from  again. 

Perhaps  this  forsaken  wreck  was  caused  by 
another  derelict,  for  these  water-logged  ships 
are  a  great  menace  to  navigation  and  our  reve- 
nue cutters  are  constantly  cruising  about, 
searching  for  derelicts  which  they  sink  with 
shells  or  dynamite.  Probably  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  ships  which  never  reach  port, 
and  which  are  posted  as  "missing,"  are  sunk 
by  running  into  derelicts,  for  the  low-lying 
hulks  are  hard  to  see  on  a  dark  or  stormy 
night  and  a  vessel  striking  one  may  sink  so 


40  THE  OCEAN 

quickly  that  the  crew  has  no  time  to  take  to 
the  boats. 

Whenever  a  steamer  or  a  sailing  vessel 
sights  a  derelict  its  size,  location  and  appear- 
ance are  reported  to  the  Government  and  reg- 
ular charts  or  maps  are  published  at  frequent 
intervals  giving  the  location  and  description 
of  all  known  derelicts.  Many  of  these  float- 
ing wrecks  are  easily  identified  by  their  ap- 
pearance or  the  names  which  are  still  visible, 
and  if  you  will  study  one  of  the  Pilot  Charts 
of  the  North  Atlantic  Ocean  you  will  be 
greatly  surprised  to  find  how  these  deserted 
ships  travel  about.  For  months  or  even  years 
the  wrecks  are  reported,  sometimes  far  down 
near  the  equator  and  again  among  the  ice- 
floes and  bergs  of  the  far  north.  Although  the 
derelicts  are  dangerous  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  ships  yet  they  have  been  of  great  value  in 
mapping  ocean  currents,  for  by  comparing 
the  various  charts  and  the  drift  of  the  wrecks, 
oceanographers  have  been  able  to  trace  the 
course  of  many  ocean  currents  and  streams 
with  great  accuracy. 

In  recording  the  derelicts  our  Government 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      41 

carries  out  a  very  elaborate  system  which  is 
most  interesting.  Each  wreck  and  derelict 
reported  is  at  once  given  a  serial  number  and 
its  position  is  plotted  on  a  blackboard  and 
if  it  cannot  be  identified  by  name  the  de- 
scription is  compared  with  other  reports  and 
frequently  in  this  manner  the  unknown  wreck 
is  recognised.  In  order  to  trace  the  complete 
track  of  a  derelict,  whose  name  is  unknown, 
and  to  facilitate  finding  it  on  the  register,  each 
report  is  registered  with  an  "identification 
number"  in  addition  to  its  serial  number; 
while  each  derelict,  whose  name  is  known,  has 
a  separate  place  or  page  in  the  register  de- 
voted to  that  vessel  alone.  When  a  wreck 
or  derelict  is  reported  within  striking  dis- 
tance of  an  available  naval  vessel  a  memoran- 
dum of  the  report  is  sent  by  the  Hydrographic 
Office  to  the  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Naviga- 
tion and  proper  orders  for  a  search  and  de- 
struction of  the  wreck  are  issued.  Quite  fre- 
quently, however,  the  wreck  is  reported  in 
some  remote  part  of  the  ocean  and  before  a 
naval  vessel  can  reach  it  the  derelict  drifts 
far  away  and  is  lost  for  some  time.    The  work 


42  THE  OCEAN 

done  in  destroying  these  dangerous  floating 
hulks  is  most  important  and  few  people  realise 
how  many  are  annually  destroyed  and  re- 
moved. In  the  space  of  a  few  years  as  many 
as  seventy-five  derelicts  have  been  sent  to  the 
bottom  by  torpedoes,  ramming  and  fire,  while 
twenty  or  more  are  yearly  towed  into  port. 

Sometimes  even  a  war-ship  finds  it  a  dif- 
ficult matter  to  destroy  a  derelict  which, 
months  before,  had  been  abandoned  by  her 
crew  as  in  a  sinking  condition.  On  October 
22,  1893,  the  abandoned  American  three- 
masted  schooner  Drisko  of  two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  tons,  lumber-laden  and  water- 
logged, was  sighted  by  the  U,  S.  S,  San  Fran- 
cisco. The  officers  found  it  was  impossible 
to  tow  the  derelict  and  three  thirty-four-pound 
guncotton  torpedoes  were  attached  to  the 
wreck's  keel  and  exploded,  and  while  these 
inflicted  a  great  deal  of  damage  the  derelict 
continued  to  float.  Five  more  torpedoes  were 
then  exploded  under  the  keel  and  the  back 
and  frames  of  the  hulk  were  broken.  Still 
she  floated  and  the  San  Francisco  rammed  the 
Drisko  amidships.    This  broke  her  in  two  and 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      43 

released  the  cargo,  and  to  make  sure  that  the 
stubborn  wreck  would  sink,  the  San  Francisco 
fired  several  shells  into  her  stern,  scattering 
the  fragments  of  the  once-staunch  schooner  far 
and  wide. 

Only  by  such  methods  can  the  ocean  lanes 
be  kept  free  from  floating  wrecks,  and  even 
with  all  our  efforts  a  great  many  vessels  strike 
derelicts  and  are  injured  every  year.  There 
are  so  many  wrecks  floating  about, — as  many 
as  one  thousand  having  been  reported  in  one 
year  from  the  North  Atlantic  alone, — that  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  hunt  down  and  destroy 
them  all,  but  fortunately  they  do  not  all  stay 
afloat  or  drift  about  for  very  long.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  the  average  length  of  time  which 
a  derelict  remains  afloat  is  one  month,  and 
as  an  average  of  about  nineteen  wrecks  are 
reported  monthly,  there  must  be  about  nine- 
teen wrecks  constantly  afloat  in  the  North 
Atlantic.  The  majority  of  the  derelicts  are 
seen  in  the  Gulf  Stream  off  our  Atlantic  coast, 
north  of  30°  north  latitude  and  west  of  60° 
west  longitude,  and  thus  in  the  track  of  a  great 
deal  of  navigation.     That  they  are  a  serious 


44  THE  OCEAN 

menace  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  during  a 
period  of  six  years  sixty-one  collisions  with 
derelicts  were  reported  in  the  North  Atlantic, 
of  which  ten  resulted  in  a  total  loss  of  the 
vessel,  twenty-three  in  serious  damage,  eleven 
vessels  were  damaged  slightly,  and  the  dam- 
age to  the  rest  was  unknown. 

All  mariners  dread  derelicts,  for  they  can 
never  tell  where  they  may  run  against  one, 
even  with  the  frequently  published  pilot- 
charts  and  reports.  Derelicts  cannot  be  de- 
pended upon  to  remain  in  any  one  place,  but 
have  most  remarkable  ways  of  drifting  hither 
and  thither,  sometimes  disappearing  for 
months  at  a  time  and  suddenly  reappearing 
hundreds  of  miles  from  the  spot  where  they 
were  last  seen. 

It  is  interesting  to  study  the  drift  of  these 
ocean  waifs,  many  of  which  sail  rudderless 
and  unguided  for  such  great  distances.  In  fact 
the  Government  charts  show  that  in  six  years 
twenty-five  derelicts  were  reported  which 
drifted  one  thousand  miles  or  more,  eleven 
drifted  over  two  thousand  miles,  and  three 
travelled    over    five    thousand    miles.      The 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      45 

record  for  all  was  held  by  the  three-masted 
schooner  Fannie  E.  Wolston,  which  was  aban- 
doned on  October  15th,  1891,  and  was  last 
seen  on  February  20th,  1894,  ^^  eight  hun- 
dred and  fifty-eight  days  from  the  time  she 
was  left  to  the  mercy  of  winds  and  waves. 
During  that  time  this  ocean  waif  drifted  the 
enormous  total  of  seven  thousand  and  twenty- 
five  miles  and,  as  at  last  accounts  she  was  still 
supposed  to  be  afloat,  no  one  can  tell  how  far 
she  eventually  travelled.  During  the  time 
that  this  derelict  was  reported  she  traversed 
a  large  portion  of  the  North  Atlantic  in  her 
wanderings.  Abandoned  off  Hatteras  she 
travelled  northward  in  the  Gulf  Stream  until 
off  Norfolk,  Virginia,  when  she  started  east- 
ward and  drifted  far  towards  the  coast  of 
Africa,  being  reported  more  than  halfway 
across  the  broad  Atlantic  on  June  13th,  1892. 
Here  her  course  altered  and  for  three  hun- 
dred-odd miles  she  moved  directly  south, 
until  July  14th,  when,  as  if  guided  by  unseen 
hands,  she  headed  northwest,  drifted  for  two 
hundred  miles,  turned  on  her  tracks,  retraced 
her  course  for  a  hundred  miles  or  so,  again 


46  THE  OCEAN 

doubled,  and  on  September  6th  was  only  a  few 
miles  from  the  spot  where  she  had  been  re- 
ported a  month  previously.  From  there  she 
travelled  westerly  for  nearly  four  hundred 
miles,  turned  towards  the  north  and  covered 
another  three  hundred  miles,  swung  to  the 
east  for  nearly  seven  hundred  miles  and  on 
January,  1893,  was  only  a  short  distance  from 
the  locality  in  which  she  was  seen  in  June 
of  the  preceding  year.  Here  again  this  re- 
markable wreck  shifted  her  course  towards 
the  south,  crossed  her  former  track  twice,  and 
by  May  was  on  the  border  of  the  tropics,  mid- 
way between  Florida  and  Africa,  and  a  thou- 
sand miles  from  where  she  had  been  seen  in 
January  of  the  same  year.  Once  more  she 
turned  her  nose  towards  the  distant  shores  of 
America,  travelled  for  six  hundred  miles  in 
an  almost  direct  course,  turned  east  for  one 
hundred  miles,  again  headed  for  our  coast, 
and  on  November  loth,  1893,  was  but  five 
hundred  miles  from  where  she  was  originally 
abandoned  and  within  the  same  distance  from 
the  Florida  coast.  Here  again  commenced 
that  erratic,  zigzag  behaviour  for  which  the 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      47 

schooner  had  become  famous,  and  for  three 
months  she  travelled  by  short,  irregular  tacks 
back  and  forth,  north  of  the  Bahamas,  until 
on  February  20th  she  was  last  reported  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  east  of  Savannah, 
Georgia,  having  endured  the  stress  of  storm, 
winds  and  seas  for  nearly  two  years  and  a 
half  after  being  abandoned  by  her  crew  as  in 
a  sinking  condition.  Sometimes  derelicts 
divulge  most  curious  things  when  boarded, 
for  they  are  often  abandoned  by  their  crews 
in  a  great  hurry  or  in  a  panic,  and  not  infre- 
quently the  men  are  lost  and  there  is  nothing 
to  show  why  they  deserted  their  apparently 
seaworthy  ship.  On  at  least  two  occasions 
ships  have  been  found  sailing  aimlessly  about 
under  full  sail,  in  perfect  condition  and  with- 
out a  soul  on  board.  When  boarded  every- 
thing was  found  undisturbed  and  in  order. 
Pots  of  partly-cooked  food  were  on  the  galley 
stove,  charts  and  papers  were  spread  on  the 
cabin  table,  clothing  and  personal  effects  were 
in  lockers  and  chests  and  everything  about  the 
ship  appeared  as  if  she  were  still  occupied  by 
her  missing  crew.    Various  explanations  have 


48  THE  OCEAN 

been  offered  for  such  strange  conditions,  but 
no  acceptable  theory,  as  to  why  such  vessels 
were  suddenly  deserted,  has  been  forthcom- 
ing, and  they  still  remain  among  the  most  baf- 
fling mysteries  of  the  sea. 

Many  derelicts  float  bottom-up  and  not  a 
few  stories  have  been  written  in  which  men 
were  represented  as  living  for  days  or  weeks 
within  these  capsized  hulks.  As  these  dere- 
licts contain  a  large  amount  of  air  a  man 
undoubtedly  could  live  for  some  time  within 
one  of  them,  but  there  is  no  authentic  instance 
of  the  kind.  One  such  derelict  proved  a 
great  surprise  to  the  officers  of  the  naval  ves- 
sel which  destroyed  it,  however,  for  as  the 
first  shell  struck  the  hull  and  tore  a  great  hole 
in  the  planking,  scores  of  living  creatures 
swarmed  through  the  aperture.  They  were 
cats;  countless  numbers  of  them;  descendants 
of  the  ship's  cats  which  had  been  left  on  board 
when  the  wreck  was  abandoned  and  which  had 
fed  upon  the  rats  in  the  hold  and  had  increased 
and  multiplied  in  their  floating  prison. 

Almost  as  dangerous  to  navigation  as  the 
derelicts  are  the  floating  masses  of  ice  known 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      49 

as  icebergs.  Fortunately  for  mariners  bergs 
are  confined  to  the  far  north  and  far  south  and 
the  adjacent  seas.  In  the  southern  oceans 
there  are  so  few  vessels  that  bergs  and  float- 
ing ice  are  no  serious  menace,  but  in  the  North 
Atlantic  the  masses  of  ice  drift  across  the 
lanes  of  travel  of  transatlantic  steamers  and 
are  exceedingly  dangerous.  Nearly  every 
season  some  ship  runs  into  a  berg,  while  others 
have  very  narrow  escapes  and  oftentimes  such 
collisions  result  in  a  tremendous  loss  of  life, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Titanic  disaster.  Al- 
though so  dangerous,  yet,  like  derelicts,  ice- 
bergs have  enabled  our  Government  to  deter- 
mine many  valuable  facts  and  to  obtain  much 
interesting  data  in  regard  to  ocean  currents. 
Ever  since  the  Titanic  catastrophe  a  strict  ice- 
patrol  has  been  established  and  two  United 
States  cruisers,  or  revenue  cutters,  as  well  as 
British  ships,  are  detailed  solely  for  this  duty, 
so  that  the  danger  of  ships  striking  bergs  has 
been  greatly  decreased. 

In  clear  weather  icebergs  are  not  particu- 
larly dangerous,  even  at  night,  for  they  may 
be  seen  for  a  long  distance — on  ordinary  days 


50  THE  OCEAN 

for  twelve  to  fifteen  miles — and  instances 
are  xecorded  of  ice  being  sighted  for  eighteen 
or  twenty  miles  in  clear,  sunny  weather.  Even 
at  night,  in  clear  weather,  bergs  may  be  seen 
two  or  three  miles  away  when  the  moon  is 
shining;  for  a  mile  or  more  when  there  is 
no  moon  and  on  cloudy  nights  for  fully  half  a 
mile. 

Unfortunately  the  portions  of  the  ocean 
where  bergs  are  most  numerous  are  also  the 
most  stormy,  hazy  and  foggy.  Even  a  very 
light  fog  will  greatly  reduce  the  distance  at 
which  a  berg  may  be  seen  and  it  is  seldom 
that  one  can  be  sighted  over  two  miles  dis- 
tant if  there  is  any  fog  whatever,  while  in  a 
really  heavy  fog  a  very  large  berg  may  not 
be  visible  until  within  two  hundred  yards. 
Mariners  travelling  through  the  seas  where 
they  are  likely  to  meet  bergs  are  greatly  in 
dread  of  fogs  for  this  reason  and  invariably 
keep  a  sharp  lookout,  but  quite  often  the  man 
on  watch  fails  to  sight  a  berg  because  of  too 
much  precaution.  This  may  seem  strange  at 
first  thought,  but  it  is  easily  explained. 
Whereas  ordinarily  a  lookout  can  see  a  berg 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      51 

much  further  away  from  aloft  than  from  the 
decks,  in  a  dense  fog  the  man  on  decL  can 
often  sight  a  berg  farther  away  than  the  look- 
out can,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  water 
lapping  about  the  base  of  the  berg  is  more 
readily  distinguished  than  thq  ice  itself. 
Moreover,  on  large  ships,  the  lookout  is  fre- 
quently so  far  above  the  water  that  he  may 
have  an  unobstructed  view  of  the  horizon  even 
though  a  good-sized  mass  of  ice  may  be  within 
the  distance  of  a  mile,  and  hence  at  night  he 
may  fail  to  see  it  at  all,  whereas  if  he  was 
lower  down,  the  ice  would  loom  above  the 
edge  of  the  horizon.  So  too  in  using  search- 
lights the  lookout  is  often  hindered  instead 
of  helped,  for  if  he  stands  behind  or  beneath 
the  beam  of  light  he  can  see  nothing.  If,  how- 
ever, he  stands  fifteen  feet  away  on  either 
side  he  can  see  readily  and  he  can  distinguish 
bergs  even  when  he  stands  a  hundred  feet  or 
more  back  of  the  light. 

Besides  seeing  bergs  mariners  are  often 
warned  of  their  proximity  by  other  means. 
Among  these  are  sound,  for  a  large  berg  will 
frequently  give  ofif  an  echo  which  may  be 


52  THE  OCEAN 

heard  for  some  distance.  This  is  not,  how- 
ever, a  very  reliable  means  of  locating  ice, 
for  a  berg  may  or  may  not  give  an  echo  ac- 
cording to  w^hether  or  not  its  sides  are  steep 
and  perpendicular  or  the  face  of  the  ice  is 
turned  towards  the  sound  or  is  slanting  or 
oblique.  Experiments  by  the  ice-patrol  boats 
prove  that  fully  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  at- 
tempts to  locate  bergs  by  sound  are  without 
result  and  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to 
get  an  echo  from  a  berg  more  than  half  a 
mile  distant  and,  moreover,  the  echo  when  it 
does  occur  may  be  misleading.  In  one  case, 
recorded  by  the  ice  patrol,  an  echo  was  ob- 
tained when  the  ship  was  between  two  masses 
of  ice,  one  a  so-called  "growler,"  or  piece 
broken  from  a  berg,  and  the  other  a  large 
berg;  and  as  events  proved  the  growler  gave 
forth  an  echo,  whereas  the  berg  gave  none. 
Many  sailors  depend  for  a  warning  against 
bergs  largely  upon  the  temperature  of  the  air 
or  water  and  the  ''feel  of  ice"  in  the  air,  but 
from  the  experiments  and  experiences  of  the 
Government  boats  such  methods  are  very  unre- 
liable.    In  fact  the  officers  of  the  ice-patrol 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      53 

claim  that  sudden  changes  of  temperature 
mean  nothing  so  far  as  ice  is  concerned.  In 
many  cases  they  found  no  change  in  the  tem- 
perature of  the  water  up  to  within  a  ship's 
length  of  bergs,  whereas  the  coldest  water  they 
found  was  one  hundred  miles  from  the  nearest 
ice.  Even  close  to  a  berg  the  temperature  of 
the  water  falls  only  from  two  to  four  degrees. 
Flocks  of  birds  sometimes  indicate  the  near- 
ness of  ice,  but,  unless  one  is  familiar  with  the 
species  of  birds,  their  absence  or  abundance 
can  not  be  depended  upon  to  prove  bergs  near 
at  hand,  for  on  the  fishing  banks  one  often 
sees,  far  from  ice,  large  flocks  of  various  sea- 
birds  which  have  been  attracted  by  the  fish- 
ing vessels.  The  only  sure  way  of  navigating 
in  safety  in  those  seas  where  bergs  are  liable 
to  be  met  is  to  proceed  very  slowly  and  cau- 
tiously and  to  use  all  the  known  means  of  locat- 
ing ice  without  depending  too  much  on  any 
one  method,  especially  in  thick  weather.  All 
icebergs  are  formed  in  the  far  Arctic  or  Ant- 
arctic, where  glaciers  fill  the  deep  valleys  and 
fjords  that  lead  inland  from  the  sea.  As  these 
glaciers  move  slowly — like  great  frozen  rivers 


54  THE  OCEAN 

— into  the  sea  the  outer  ends  break  off  and 
float  away  as  icebergs. 

Nearly  all  the  bergs  which  drift  into  the 
steamship  lanes  of  the  North  Atlantic  come 
from  western  Greenland,  while  a  few  drift 
south  from  the  Spitzbergen  Sea  and  Hudson 
Bay,  for  bergs  may  travel  enormous  distances 
and  may  endure  for  two  years  or  more  if 
they  do  not  reach  water  warm  enough  to  melt 
them  rapidly.  Only  a  small  portion  of  the 
icebergs  ever  drift  south  to  the  vicinity  of  the 
Grand  Banks  and  the  ocean  steamship  routes, 
for  on  their  journey  down  from  the  shores  of 
Greenland  they  meet  with  many  stoppages 
and  mishaps.  Of  the  thousands  of  bergs 
which  start  on  their  southward  trip  many 
ground  in  the  Arctic  basin  and  break  up. 
Others  reach  the  shores  of  Labrador  and 
ground  among  the  numerous  islands,  bays, 
headlands,  shoals  and  reefs  of  that  coast.  Still 
others  break  up  and  disappear  at  sea  and  only 
a  few  pass  safely  to  the  regions  off  the  Grand 
Banks  of  Newfoundland. 

The  greatest  factor  in  the  drift  of  the  bergs 
is  the  Labrador  Current,  which  passes  south 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      55 

along  the  coasts  of  Baffin  Land  and  Labrador 
and  flows  at  an  average  rate  of  from  ten  to 
thirty-six  miles  a  day;  but  even  in  this  cur- 
rent bergs  at  times  drift  northward  without 
any  apparent  reason,  thus  presenting  another 
mystery  of  the  sea  which  is  yet  to  be  solved. 

As  the  bergs  are  formed  from  ice  frozen 
at  a  very  low  temperature  their  surfaces  melt 
very  rapidly,  when  exposed  to  a  thawing  tem- 
perature, and  the  difference  in  tension  between 
their  exterior  and  interior  often  results  in 
their  bursting  apart  with  deafening  sound. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  pictures  of  ice- 
bergs in  geographies  and  other  school  books, 
but  these  lofty,  overhanging,  craggy,  pinna- 
cled forms  are  the  most  unusual  of  all  and 
no  two  bergs  are  really  anything  alike  in 
shape.  Some  are  low,  or  squareish,  others  are 
crowned  with  spires,  domes,  minarets  and 
peaks,  and  still  others  are  pierced  by  great 
caves  and  fissures.  There  are  bergs  with 
round  tops,  flat  tops,  sloping  tops  and  peaked 
tops,  and  with  sloping  sides,  sheer  sides,  and 
craggy  sides,  and  in  size  they  vary  as  greatly 
as  in  form. 


56  THE  OCEAN 

Vessels  often  report  bergs  half  a  mile  or 
more  in  length  and  over  three  hundred  feet  in 
height,  but  bergs  of  such  dimensions  are  ex- 
tremely rare  and  it  is  seldom  that  they  are 
seen  with  a  greater  altitude  than  two  hundred 
feet  or  a  greater  length  than  five  hundred 
feet.  The  portion  above  water  is,  however, 
but  a  small  portion  of  the  entire  mass  of  ice, 
usually  but  one-eighth  or  one-ninth  of  the 
whole  berg.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  berg 
must  be  eight  or  nine  times  as  deep  beneath 
the  sea  as  the  height  of  the  visible  portion 
above  it,  but  that  the  submerged  weight  or 
mass  must  be  eight  or  nine  times  as  great  as 
the  visible  portion. 

For  example  a  large,  solid  mass  of  ice  may 
have  but  a  single,  lofty  pinnacle  above  the 
sea  and  this  may  reach  several  times  the  height 
of  the  submerged  portion.  In  fact  there  is 
an  authentic  record  of  an  iceberg  which 
grounded  in  sixteen  fathoms  of  water  and 
which  bore  a  thin  spire  over  one  hundred  feet 
in  height. 

This  immense  sunken  part  of  a  berg  is 
sometimes  more  dangerous  to  vessels  than  the 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      57 

visible  berg,  for  the  concealed  portions  often 
extend  a  long  distance  on  every  side  of  the 
central  peaks  and  these  hidden  masses  of  ice 
are  as  bad  as  sunken  reefs.  Several  instances 
are  on  record  of  ships  having  struck  such  an 
outlying  spur  of  ice  when  the  captain  had 
seen  the  berg  and  had — as  he  thought — given 
it  a  wide  berth. 

With  all  their  bulk  and  size  icebergs  are 
very  brittle  and  a  very  slight  impact  will  often 
accomplish  their  destruction.  Sometimes  a 
single  blow  of  an  axe  will  split  a  huge  berg,  or 
the  sudden  concussion  of  a  gunshot  may  shat- 
ter it.  Moreover  the  bergs  are  often  very 
nicely  balanced  and  the  least  melting  of  their 
surfaces  or  other  changes  may  shift  their  cen- 
tres of  gravity  and  cause  them  to  capsize.  Sev- 
eral ships  have  been  injured  by  bergs  sud- 
denly breaking  up  or  capsizing  when  close 
to  them. 

When  such  changes  take  place  a  berg  may 
alter  its  appearance  entirely  and  a  lofty,  pin- 
nacled mass  of  ice  may  suddenly  be  trans- 
formed into  a  flat  or  rounded,  low-lying  berg. 
Many  bergs,  however,  drift  all  the  way  from 


58  THE  OCEAN 

the  far  polar  regions  to  the  waters  of?  the 
Newfoundland  coasts  without  change  and  not 
infrequently  polar  bears  are  seen  on  floating 
bergs  far  out  at  sea.  Even  men  at  times  have 
travelled  long  distances  on  bergs  and  been  res- 
cued by  passing  ships.  On  October  14,  1871, 
Captain  Tyson  of  the  U,  S.  S.  Polaris,  in  com- 
pany with  nineteen  persons,  became  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  ship's  company  by  the  ice 
breaking  apart  just  south  of  Littleton  Island. 
The  party  had  no  boat,  and  being  unable  to  re- 
gain the  solid  ice  they  were  compelled  to  re- 
main on  the  drifting  mass,  which,  once  in  a 
current,  commenced  to  travel  southward  and 
out  to  sea.  Here  the  little  party  remained; 
ever  travelling  slowly  southward  and  con- 
stantly in  dread  of  the  ice  breaking  up ;  on  the 
brink  of  starvation  and  exposed  to  the  fury 
of  the  Arctic  storms  and  icy  gales.  At  one 
time  a  polar  bear  climbed  aboard  the  drifting 
ice  and  an  Eskimo  hunter  in  the  party  added 
him  to  the  larder.  Now  and  then  a  seal  would 
clamber  upon  the  ice  and  would  form  a  wel- 
come addition  to  the  bill  of  fare,  while  gulls, 
auks,  murres  and  other  sea  birds  were  often 


DERELICTS  AND  ICEBERGS      59 

captured.  For  six  long  months  the  little 
party  lived  upon  the  drifting  ice  and  on  April 
30,  1872,  were  picked  up  by  the  Newfound- 
land sealing  steamer  Tigress  off  the  Straits  of 
Belle  Isle,  over  fifteen  hundred  miles  from 
where  they  had  first  become  separated  from 
their  companions.  Strangest  of  all  not  a  life 
was  lost  and,  moreover,  while  but  twenty  per- 
sons started  on  this  remarkable  voyage  twenty- 
one  were  taken  from  the  ice  by  the  men  of 
the  Tigress,  for  during  the  trip  a  son  had  been 
born  to  the  wife  of  Eskimo  Joe.  Some  of  the 
members  of  this  little  party  of  castaways  lived 
at  Noank,  Connecticut,  and  there  Eskimo  Joe 
settled  down,  and  his  son,  born  upon  a  drifting 
ice-floe  in  the  Arctic,  was  a  playmate  of  the 
author  of  this  book  in  his  youth. 


Chapter  IV 

TIDES  AND  WAVES 

Some  of  the  greatest  mysteries  of  the  sea  are 
of  such  everyday  occurrence  and  so  familiar 
to  us  that  we  seldom  give  them  more  than 
passing  thought  or  stop  to  realise  how  really 
remarkable  they  are.  Among  them  are  the 
tides,  and  while  we  all  know  that  tides  occur 
and  we  look  upon  them  as  a  matter  of  course, 
yet  they  are  really  very  strange  and  myste- 
rious things  and  are  difficult  to  explain  satis- 
factorily. We  attribute  the  rise  and  fall  of 
the  tides  to  the  moon,  but  after  all  we  really 
have  no  proof  that  the  moon  causes  them, 
and  our  reason  for  believing  that  they  are 
produced  by  that  planet's  influence  is  mainly 
due  to  theory  and  our  knowledge  of  certain 
natural  laws. 

For  a  very  long  time  man  has  noticed  that 
the  intervals  of  the  tides  correspond  with  the 

time  of  the  moon's  passage,  and  as  we  know 

60 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  6i 

that  bodies  of  matter,  such  as  the  earth  and 
the  moon,  possess  a  force  called  "gravitation" 
we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  force 
of  gravitation  of  the  moon  causes  our  tides. 
But  if  we  stop  to  consider  the  matter  we  will 
realise  that  this  very  gravitation  is  itself  a 
mystery  and  hence  the  tides,  even  when  ex- 
plained in  this  manner,  still  remain  mysteries 
of  the  sea. 

The  moon  of  course  exerts  her  attractive 
force  upon  all  portions  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face, but  the  water,  being  free  to  move,  is 
drawn  towards  the  side  of  the  earth  nearest 
to  the  moon.  The  broader  the  surface  of  the 
water  the  greater  will  be  the  amount  which 
follows  the  moon  from  east  to  west.  On  small 
bodies  of  water  the  tides  no  doubt  occur, 
though  the  amount  of  the  water  attracted  by 
the  moon  is  so  small  that  it  is  not  noticeable, 
but  on  every  ocean,  and  even  on  the  larger 
lakes,  tides  are  known  to  occur.  No  doubt 
there  is  a  distinct  "tidal  wave"  on  every  ocean 
as  the  moon  passes  over  it,  but  the  largest  and 
principal  tide  is  formed  in  the  Pacific  and 
follows  after  the  moon  from  east  to  west,  and 


62 


THE  OCEAN 


does  not  reach  the  coast  of  North  America 
until  it  is  thirty-six  hours  old.  Strangely 
enough  a  second  tidal  wave  is  formed  on  the 


Of  Sat f-^  &Afoon 


5rca/f/a.ry  y\^ir(^ 

HOW  THE  MOON  CAUSES  TIDES 

side  of  the  earth  opposite  the  moon  and  at  first 
thought  this  would  seem  to  refute  the  theory 
that  the  moon  really  causes  the  tides.  To 
explain  this  second  tide  is  far  more  difficult 
than  to  account  for  the  first  and  several  well- 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  63 

known  laws  and  facts  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration. In  the  first  place,  although  we 
speak  of  the  earth  "revolving  on  its  axis,"  in 
reality  it  does  not  revolve  about  its  absolute 
centre — like  a  wheel  about  its  axle — but  in- 
stead it  rotates  about  the  centre  of  gravity  of 
both  the  earth  and  moon  combined,  for  the 
two  planets  really  form  a  single  unit  in  the 
solar  system.  This  is  perhaps  more  readily 
understood  by  studying  the  diagram  on  page 
62  in  which  A  represents  the  true  centre  of 
gravity  of  the  earth,  while  B  represents  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  both  the  planets  together. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  if  the  earth  is  revolving 
around  the  axis  at  B  the  side  C  must  travel 
faster  than  D  and  therefore  the  mobile  water 
on  that  side  will  have  a  tendency  to  be  thrown 
from  the  surface,  just  as  mud  is  thrown  from  a 
swiftly-travelling  wheel,  and  it  is  this  tend- 
ency that  is  supposed  to  cause  the  tidal  wave 
opposite  the  moon. 

Tides  do  not  always  rise  and  fall  the  same 
amount,  but  vary  at  different  seasons  and  at 
first  this  may  seem  peculiar  if  we  assume  that 
they  are  caused  by  the  moon.    If  every  large 


64  THE  OCEAN 

body  exerts  a  force  of  gravitation  upon  the 
water  the  sun  must  also  attract  the  sea,  al- 
though, owing  to  its  greater  distance  from  the 
earth,  it  exerts  only  a  very  little  force  as  com- 
pared with  the  moon.  When,  however,  the 
sun  and  moon  both  act  together  the  highest 
tides  are  formed,  which  are  known  as  ^^Spring 
Tides"  or  "Perigee  Tides,"  and  when  the  two 
planets  are  opposed  and  exert  their  forces  in 
different  directions  "Neap  Tides"  or  very 
low  tides  result. 

If  you  visit  various  points  on  the  seacoast 
you  may  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  amount 
of  rise  and  fall  of  the  tide  varies  a  great  deal. 
In  one  spot  the  tide  may  rise  and  fall  for  six 
or  eight  feet  while  in  another  locality,  only  a 
few  miles  away,  there  may  be  a  rise  and  fall 
of  but  two  or  three  feet.  In  reality  the  tide 
itself  rises  and  falls  the  same  amount  in  both 
places  but  the  water  rises  and  falls  more  or 
less  according  to  the  surrounding  shores,  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean  and  the  wind.  I  have 
already  told  how  the  tides  on  some  of  the 
West  Indian  islands  rise  and  fall  but  a  few 
inches  on  one  side  of  an  island  and  five  or  six 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  65 

feet  on  the  other  and  how  this  is  caused  by 
the  tide  being  unable  to  flow  out  against  the 
wind  and  currents.  In  a  lesser  degree  the 
same  thing  occurs  wherever  a  strong  current 
or  wind  prevails  on  our  own  coasts  or  where 
a  large  bay  or  harbour  is  connected  with  the 
sea  by  a  narrow  opening  or  channel.  In  such 
places  the  water  from  the  large  bay  cannot 
flow  out  through  the  narrow  entrance  during 
the  six  hours  between  high  and  low  tides, 
and  hence  the  water  inside  does  not  rise  and 
fall  the  same  amount  as  the  tides  themselves. 
On  the  other  hand,  where  there  is  a  long, 
narrow  harbour  or  inlet  connected  with  the 
ocean  by  a  broad  estuary  or  strait  the  very 
reverse  happens.  In  such  places  the  incom- 
ing tide  piles  up  as  it  proceeds  between  the 
narrowing  shores  and  produces  an  enormous 
difference  between  the  depth  of  water  at  high 
and  low  tide. 

In  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  Nova  Scotia,  the  dif- 
ference between  tides  is  from  fifty  to  sixty  feet 
and  in  the  Bristol  Channel  about  forty  feet, 
although  on  the  shores  outside  of  these  bays 
the  real  tide  rises  and  falls  only  five  or  six 


66  THE  OCEAN 

feet  In  situations  such  as  these  the  bottom 
of  the  incoming  tide  "drags"  and  the  tide,  in- 
stead of  rising  gradually  as  on  most  coasts, 
approaches  in  the  form  of  an  immense  wave 
and  often  travels  with  great  speed,  its  crest 
curling  and  foam-capped  like  a  huge  roller 
breaking  on  a  beach. 

These  great  "tidal  waves"  are  called  "bores" 
and  frequently  boats  are  destroyed  and  lives 
lost  by  being  caught  in  the  irresistible,  oncom- 
ing tidal  "bore." 

We  speak  of  the  mass  of  water,  supposedly 
attracted  by  the  moon  and  which  produces 
our  tides,  as  a  "tidal  wave,"  but  in  reality 
this  is  not  a  true  wave  at  all  and  is  very  dif- 
ferent indeed  from  another  kind  of  "tidal 
wave." 

While  the  so-called  tidal  wave  is  a  mass  of 
water  which  actually  moves  along,  the  water 
in  true  waves  does  not  move  forward  but 
merely  up  and  down,  although  the  waves 
themselves  move  forward.  The  fact  that  the 
water  of  waves  moves  only  up  and  down  is 
easily  proved  by  tossing  a  bit  of  wood  upon  the 
water  and,  if  no  tide  is  flowing  and  no  wind 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  67 

blowing,  the  floating  timber  will  merely  rise 
and  fall  without  moving  along. 

A  still  better  idea  of  the  motion  of  waves 
may  be  obtained  by  moving  some  object  along 
the  under  side  of  a  piece  of  paper  or  cloth. 
The  "wave"  of  paper  or  cloth  thus  produced 
will  appear  to  move  forward  just  as  the  water 
of  real  waves  looks  as  if  it  was  moving,  but  in 
reality  the  cloth  or  paper  remains  stationary 
just  as  the  water  remains  practically  station- 
ary, while  the  wrinkles  of  the  material,  which 
represent  the  waves,  actually  move  along. 
When  waves  are  caused  by  the  force  of  the 
wind  upon  the  surface  of  the  water  they  form 
in  fairly  regular  lines  at  right  angles  to  the 
course  of  the  wind,  but  as  they  reach  shallow 
water  they  alter  their  course  and  break  upon 
the  shore  in  a  line  nearly  parallel  with  the 
coastline.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
portions  of  the  waves  nearest  to  the  shore  are 
retarded  by  the  shallow  water  while  the  por- 
tions still  over  deep  water  proceed  more  rap- 
idly and  thus  the  waves  gradually  swing 
around  in  line  with  the  coast.  This  same  re- 
tarding effect  of   shoal  water  upon  waves 


68  THE  OCEAN 

causes  the  great  rollers  and  breakers  which 
we  see  upon  our  coasts  after  heavy  storms. 
The  larger  the  waves  the  greater  the  depth  of 
water  affected  by  them  and,  when  this  depth 
is  sufficient,  the  lower  portions  of  the  waves 
are  held  back  by  the  bottom  of  the  sea  near 
the  shore  and  the  upper  parts  travel  more 
rapidly  and  break  or  curl  over  the  lower  por- 
tions. This  breaking  of  waves  upon  a  shore 
gives  a  still  greater  appearance  of  the  water 
itself  travelling  forward,  but  between  the 
waves  the  water  flows  back  to  its  normal 
height,  which  would  not  be  the  case  if  the 
water  itself  were  really  moving  forward,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  tide. 

Out  at  sea,  in  deep  water,  even  the  very 
largest  waves  do  not  break  and  curl,  save 
where  they  come  into  contact  with  some  other 
object  or  other  waves  or  when  their  tops  are 
blown  off  by  the  wind.  When  the  wind  trav- 
els faster  than  the  waves  the  tops  are  forced 
ahead  of  the  lower  portions  and  the  waves 
break  in  much  the  same  manner  as  when  the 
lower  parts  drag  on  the  shore,  for  in  each 
case  the  upper  parts  of  the  waves  travel  faster 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  69 

than  the  lower  parts  and  curl  over  in  ad- 
vance. Waves,  in  mid-ocean,  may  reach  an 
enormous  size  and  some  have  been  measured 
which  were  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  height.  Such 
waves,  should  they  reach  the  shore,  would 
pile  up  to  still  greater  heights  and  would  pos- 
sess enormous  destructive  force,  but  as  a 
rule  the  size  of  waves  is  greatly  overestimated 
and  waves  ten  or  twelve  feet  in  height  are 
unusually  large.  It  often  happens  that  one 
wave  overtakes  another  and  combines  with 
it  to  form  a  wave  much  larger  than  its  fel- 
lows and  this  great  wave  may  overtake  and 
combine  with  still  others  until  a  gigantic 
wave  is  formed  which  towers  far  above 
all  the  surrounding  seas.  Such  waves  are 
called  "cumulative  waves"  and  when  such  a 
cumulative  wave  meets  a  ship  it  ifrequently 
causes  a  vast  amount  of  damage.  A  short 
time  ago  the  Clyde  West  Indian  liner  Semi- 
nole was  struck  by  such  a  wave,  thrown 
upon  her  beam  ends  and  seemed  about 
to  capsize,  when  a  second  cumulative  wave 
struck  the  ship  on  the  opposite  side,  righted 
her  and  saved  her  from  capsizing,  although 


70  THE  OCEAN 

in  doing  so  it  carried  away  nearly  all  her 
deck-houses,  cabins  and  upper  works. 

As  a  rule,  however,  the  largest  ocean  waves 
are  not  particularly  dangerous  to  a  well-built, 
sea-worthy  ship  unless  they  curl  or  break,  for 
by  heading  into  the  waves  and  either  steam- 
ing slowly  or  "lying  to"  the  ship  will  rise 
and  fall,  but  will  safely  ride  out  the  seas.  It 
is  the  breaking  seas  that  sailors  fear  and  mari- 
ners often  hang  bags  of  oil  over  the  ships'  bows 
and  then  the  oil,  spreading  upon  the  surface 
of  the  sea,  prevents  the  weaves  from  breaking. 

Although  wind  is  the  commonest  cause  of 
waves  yet  there  are  certain  waves  which  are 
produced  by  other  causes.  An  earthquake  at 
sea,  or  even  on  land;  a  subterranean  volcanic 
eruption, — or  even  the  sudden  eruption  of  a 
volcano  on  shore, — may  start  a  wave,  or  a 
series  of  waves,  on  its  travels.  Such  waves 
are  known  as  "tidal  waves"  for  like  the  tides 
they  travel  across  immense  areas  of  the  ocean. 
Although,  at  sea,  such  a  wave  may  be  only  a 
few  feet  in  height  and  would  hardly  be  no- 
ticeable, yet  it  may  be  of  enormous  area  and 
may  affect  the  water  for  a  great  depth.    When 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  71 

such  a  wave  reaches  shallow  water  the  hot- 
\tom  commences  to  drag,  the  oncoming  wave 
in  the  rear  overtakes  it  and  the  whole  stu- 
pendous mass  culminates  in  a  vast,  onrushing 
comber  which  sweeps  all  before  it.     Such  a 
I    tidal  wave  partly  destroyed  Lisbon,  another 
j     spread  devastation  along  the  western  coast  of 
j     South  America,  and  in  various  portions  of  the 
i,\    world  immense  damage  has  been  caused  by 
j/      them.     Sometimes,  when  such   a  wave   ap- 
f       proaches  a  harbour,  it  tears  anchored  ships 
from  their  moorings,  carries  them  along  on  its 
crest  and  drops  them  far  inland  where  they 
rest  high  and  dry  as  the  water  recedes.     On 
the  island  of  St.  Croix,  in  the  West  Indies, 
there  was  formerly  a  large  schooner  resting 
beside  the  roadway,  among  a  grove  of  palm 
trees  a  long  distance  from  the  sea,  and  with  her 
hull  transformed  into  dwelling  places  and 
shops  by  the  natives.    This  vessel  was  carried 
to  her  strange  resting  place  on  the  crest  of  an 
immense  wave  a  number  of  years  ago  and  the 
size  and  height  of  the  wave  may  be  imagined 
from  the  fact  that  it  carried  the  vessel  clear 
i3ver  the  tops  of  the  intervening  palm  trees. 


72  THE  OCEAN 

During  severe  hurricanes  in  the  tropics,  im- 
mense waves  are  often  formed  which  cause 
enormous  losses  to  shipping,  as  well  as  to  the 
coastwise  towns  and  lands,  and  in  many  places 
the  destruction  wrought  by  the  waves  is  far 
greater  than  that  caused  by  the  wind  itself. 
At  such  times  the  open  sea  is  far  safer  than 
an  anchorage  near  shore  and  many  a  captain 
has  saved  his  ship  and  the  lives  of  his  crew 
by  putting  to  sea  in  the  very  teeth  of  a  hur- 
ricane. This  was  the  case  at  the  time  of  the 
great  hurricane  in  Samoa,  when  British,  Ger- 
man and  American  warships  were  cast  upon 
the  shore  and  smashed  into  kindling  wood  by 
the  wind  and  waves,  while  the  British  ship 
Calliope  steamed  out  into  the  screeching, 
howling  gale  and  sought  safety  in  the  open 
ocean. 

Even  the  heaviest  seas  in  mid-ocean  are 
safer  than  much  smaller  seas  near  shore  and 
while  hurricanes,  severe  gales,  immense  waves 
and  waterspouts  are  all  dangerous,  yet  the 
actual  losses  of  ships  from  such  causes  are  com- 
paratively small,  when  the  vessels  have  plenty 
of  sea-room.     Moreover  storms  seldom  ex- 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  73 

tend  over  a  very  wide  area  of  the  ocean  and 
one  may  sail  from  smooth,  pleasant  weather 
into  a  heavy  sea  and  gale  and  out  again  into 
calm  water  in  a  comparatively  short  time.  To 
the  landsman  unfamiliar  with  the  sea,  a  storm 
or  a  heavy  sea  may  appear  to  cover  the  entire 
ocean,  but  in  reality  it  may  extend  only  for  a 
few  miles.  When  a  ship  is  tossing  about  and 
rolling  madly  among  mountainous  waves,  with 
a  gale  howling  and  screeching  through  the 
rigging  and  sleet  and  rain  pelting  down  like 
shot  from  a  gun,  it  is  hard  indeed  to  realise 
that,  within  a  few  miles,  some  other  vessel  may 
be  sailing  under  a  sunny  sky  with  a  gentle 
lyy   wind  and  over  an  almost  smooth  sea. 

Some  parts  of  the  ocean  are  far  more  stormy 
than  others  and  in  such  places  sailors  look 
for  gales,  rough  seas,  fogs  and  bad  weather. 
In  the  North  Atlantic,  around  Cape  Horn  and 
in  many  other  places  mariners  are  far  more 
apt  to  encounter  foul  weather  than  fair,  while 
in  other  localities  good  weather  is  the  rule 
and  severe  storms  are  seldom  met.  Between 
the  eastern  coast  of  the  United  States  and  the 
West  Indies  and  Africa  one  may  often  travel 


74  THE  OCEAN 

for  days  over  a  sea  as  smooth  as  glass  and  with 
just  a  gentle  breeze  which  scarcely  ruffles  the 
surface  of  the  ocean  and  the  traveller  may 
make  the  trip  back  and  forth  over  this  route 
for  years  without  encountering  a  severe  storm. 
On  the  other  hand  every  trip  may  be  rough 
and  boisterous  for,  after  all,  the  question  of 
good  or  bad  weather  is  largely  a  matter  of 
chance  or  "luck."  The  region  off  Cape  Hat- 
teras  is  usually  considered  stormy  and  rough 
and  yet  the  author  has  made  sixteen  ocean 
trips  past  Hatteras  and  on  every  occasion  but 
one,  has  enjoyed  the  pleasantest  of  weather  and 
the  smoothest  of  seas. 

Nevertheless  Hatteras  well  deserves  its  rep- 
utation for  rough  weather  and  during  many 
months  of  the  year  one  may  expect  unsettled, 
boisterous  and  heavy  weather  off  this  cape. 
It  is  in  this  region  that  sudden,*  severe  squalls, 
showers,  electrical  phenomena,  and  even  snow 
in  June,  are  often  encountered  and  not  infre- 
quently one  or  more  waterspouts  are  sighted 
near  the  edge  of  the  Gulf  Stream  even  in 
smooth  weather.  On  one  occasion  the  author 
saw  three  of  these  strange  funnel-shaped  col- 


(From  a  photograph  by  Dr.  Edgar  Johnson,  S.  S.  Brazos) 

A   WATERSPOUT  AT   SEA 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  75 

mns  of  water  at  one  time,  two  of  which  passed 
ithin  a  few  hundred  feet  of  the  ship.  The 
ommon  belief  that  waterspouts  are  very  dan- 
erous  to  vessels  has  little  foundation  in  fact, 
for  as  a  rule  they  can  readily  be  avoided  by 
steamers  and  even  if  they  do  hit  a  ship  com- 
paratively little  damage  results.  The  deluge 
of  water  may  smash  boats  and  light  upper 
works  and  the  tornado-like  wind,  which  ac- 
companies the  waterspouts,  may  tear  away 
awnings,  sails  or  similar  objects,  but  serious  in- 
juries from  waterspouts  are  very  rare.  Some- 
times a  waterspout  may  actually  be  watched 
as  it  forms  and  it  is  a  strange  sight  to  see  a 
dark,  angry-looking  cloud  descend  towards 
the  water,  where,  almost  instantly,  a  little, 
white-crested  wave  rises  from  the  sea,  in- 
creases rapidly  in  size, — churning  and  boiling 
as  if  agitated  by  some  great  force  below,  and 
then  with  a  sudden  rush  springs  upward  in  a 
slender,  tapering  column  and  joins  the  low- 
hung  cloud  above.  Sometimes  the  waterspout 
is  very  slender,  curved  and  twisted;  at  other 
times  it  is  stout,  funnel-shaped  and  almost 
vertical,  while  occasionally  the  conical,  whirl- 


76  THE  OCEAN 

ing  column  of  water  may  not  extend  to  the 
cloud  above,  but  may  be  separated  by  a  wide 
space  so  that  no  visible  reason  appears  for 
the  mass  of  disturbed  water  which  stands  up, 
like  an  inverted  cone,  above  the  surface  of 
the  sea. 

Oftentimes  waterspouts  will  form  and  re- 
main almost  stationary  in  one  spot  for  a  long 
time  and  then  gradually  subside.  At  other 
times  they  may  form  and  break  and  re- 
form repeatedly  within  a  short  distance, 
or  sometimes  the  spouts  may  go  racing 
off  across  the  sea  with  tremendous  speed.  In 
every  instance,  however,  their  cause  is  the 
same  and  they  are  formed  by  whirling  winds, 
like  miniature  tornadoes,  which  create  a  suc- 
tion or  partial  vacuum  in  the  air  above  the 
sea  and  thus  draw  up  the  water  from  below. 
If  the  whirling  wind  ceases  or  encounters  a 
wind  blowing  from  another  direction,  or  if  the 
column  of  water  meets  some  obstacle,  the  suc- 
tion ceases  and  the  spout  bursts  and  falls  like 
a  cloudburst.  If  the  rotary  force  gradually 
decreases,  or  the  suction  is  insufficient  to  con- 
tinue to  draw  up  the  water,  the  spout  may 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  77 

slowly  disappear  or  it  may  break  in  the  centre, 
the  lower  portion  dropping  back  to  the  sea 
while  the  upper  part, — in  the  form  of  a  heavy, 
black,  funnel-shaped  cloud, — may  continue 
for  a  long  time  and  may  travel  for  a  con- 
siderable distance  before  it  releases  the  water 
it  has  drawn  up  and  allows  it  to  fall  in  a 
shower  of  brine.  Waterspouts  are  more  often 
seen  at  sea  than  on  lakes  or  other  bodies  of 
water  but  many  instances  are  recorded  of  wa- 
terspouts drawing  all  the  water  from  a  pond 
or  lake  and  leaving  the  bottom  bare,  while 
fishes,  frogs  and  other  creatures  were  carried 
off  by  the  whirling  cloud  to  be  dropped  at 
some  distant  point.  The  "showers  of  fish"  and 
the  stories  of  "rains  of  frogs"  are  readily  ac- 
counted for  in  this  way  as  a  good-sized  wa- 
terspout might  easily  draw  large  fish  and  other 
marine  creatures  into  the  clouds  and  transport 
them  for  a  number  of  miles. 

In  a  great  many  places  a  choppy,  rough  sea 
is  almost  always  to  be  found  but  usually 
the  rough  water  in  these  localities  is  not  due 
to  wind  or  storm  but  to  ocean  currents  or 
tides  which  remain  constant  at  all  times. 


78  THE  OCEAN 

The  English  Channel  is  a  case  of  this  sort, 
while  the  trip  across  the  Gulf  Stream  to  Ber- 
muda is  another.  Where  the  warm  water  of 
the  "Stream"  flows  north  and  meets  the  cold 
water  of  the  Arctic  current  flowing  south, 
there  is  almost  always  a  choppy,  short  sea 
such  as  sailors  term  "nasty"  and  which  on  a 
large  scale  is  much  like  the  queer,  choppy, 
conical,  little  waves  which  one  may  often  see 
in  narrow  channels  at  the  turn  of  the  tide. 
These  latter  are  known  as  "Tide  Rips"  and 
are  caused  by  the  tide  flowing  against  the  wind, 
or  by  a  tide  flowing  in  one  direction  meeting 
a  current  or  a  tide  flowing  the  opposite  way. 
Such  tide-rips  are  usually  small  and  amount 
to  but  very  little,  but  at  times,  when  the  tide 
flows  swiftly  and  a  strong  wind  is  blowing, 
the  waves  may  become  very  dangerous  and 
unpleasant.  In  some  parts  of  the  oceans  such 
tide-rips  are  of  enormous  size  and  the  vari- 
ous irregular  and  erratic  currents  and  coun- 
ter-currents produce  a  tumbling,  foaming, 
swirling  mass  of  water  of  immense  power  and 
force.  Of  this  character  is  the  famous  "Mael- 
strom" and  the  "Scylla  and  Charybdis,"  and 


TIDES  AND  WAVES  79 

while  modern  steam  vessels  may  navigate  such 
places  in  comparative  safety  the  old-fashioned 
sailing  ships  were  often  imperilled  by  the 
dangerous  currents  and  whirlpools  and  gave 
them  a  wide  berth. 


Chapter  V 

SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA 

When  once  we  study  the  sea  and  realise 
the  innumerable  dangers  which  threaten  ships 
on  every  hand  we  wonder,  not  that  so  many 
ships  are  lost,  but  that  so  few  of  them  meet 
with  disaster.  Reefs,  rocks  and  shoals,  ice- 
bergs and  ice-floes,  floating  derelicts,  strong 
currents,  wind  and  waves,  fog  and  haze,  hur- 
ricanes, tornadoes  and  waterspouts,  as  well 
as  other  ships  and  fire,  all  add  to  the  dangers 
of  navigation,  and  the  captains  and  officers 
must  be  constantly  on  the  alert  and  must  exer- 
cise unceasing  vigilance  every  moment  they  are 
at  sea.  Even  the  greatest  care  would  be  of  lit- 
tle avail  were  it  not  for  the  safeguards  of  the 
sea  such  as  lighthouses,  buoys,  charts,  etc.,  the 
meaning  and  operation  of  which  are,  to  most 
people,  as  mysterious  as  Old  Ocean  itself. 
Of  all  safeguards  of  the  sea  the  lighthouses 

and  lightships  are  the  most  in  evidence  and 

80 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA     8i 

the  most  familiar,  for  their  lofty  towers  or 
bobbing  hulls  in  the  day  and  their  twinkling 
beams  of  light  at  night  are  easily  seen  and 
recognised.  All  around  the  world  light- 
houses are  established,  but  they  are  most  nu- 
merous along  those  coasts  where  there  is  the 
greatest  amount  of  shipping  and  where  the 
shores  are  most  dangerous. 

Many  of  the  lighthouses  are  built  upon  the 
land,  often  at  some  distance  from  the  sea, 
while  others  are  built  upon  the  very  edge  of 
the  water  and  still  others  are  reared  directly 
from  the  breaking  waves  on  isolated  reefs  or 
rocks,  sometimes  a  long  distance  from  the 
land.  If  all  lighthouses  were  alike  in  form 
and  colour,  or  all  cast  the  same  kind  of  light, 
mariners  would  be  confused  and  the  light- 
houses would  prove  a  menace  rather  than  a 
help.  For  this  reason  the  various  houses  and 
towers  are  painted  different  colours  and  their 
lights  are  distinct  so  that  one  cannot  be  readily 
mistaken  for  another.  Some  lights  are  steady 
and  white,  others  are  red,  others  flash  alter- 
nately red  and  white,  while  still  others  flash 
white  at  varying  intervals,  but  in  each  and 


82  THE  OCEAN 

every  case  the  colour  and  duration  of  the  lights 
are  recorded  on  charts  and  by  this  means  a 
mariner  may  always  know  where  he  is,  if  he 
can  see  a  lighthouse.  Lightships  are  also 
identified  by  their  lights  at  night  and  in  the 
daytime  they  are  recognised  by  their  name  and 
number  which  are  painted  in  huge  letters  and 
figures  upon  their  sides.  The  lightships  serve 
much  the  same  purpose  as  the  lighthouses  and 
in  fact  they  are  really  floating  lighthouses  and 
are  placed  on  or  near  shoals,  reefs,  or  bars 
where  it  would  be  impractical  or  difficult  to 
build  and  maintain  a  lighthouse.  Of  course 
every  lighthouse  and  lightship  must  have  some 
one  constantly  in  charge,  for  if  the  lights 
should  fail  for  even  a  few  moments  ships  and 
many  lives  might  be  lost  and  day  and  night, 
through  summer  and  winter,  through  storm 
and  calm,  some  one  is  constantly  on  watch  in 
every  lighthouse  and  lightship  along  the 
coasts.  Where  the  lighthouses  are  on  land  the 
life  of  the  keeper,  as  he  is  called,  is  not  so 
hard  or  unpleasant  for  the  lighthouses  are 
quite  large  and  comfortable  and  are  often  sur- 
rounded with  flower  and  vegetable  gardens, 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      83 

while  friends  and  neighbours  are  within  easy 
reach.  It  is  quite  different  in  the  case  of  the 
houses  far  from  shore  on  isolated  reefs  and 
rocks  where  the  keeper  and  his  assistants  are 
cooped  up  in  tiny  buildings  perched  directly 
over  the  sea  and  far  from  all  friends  and  com- 
panions. Here  they  must  remain  absolutely 
alone  and  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world 
for  weeks  at  a  time,  while  all  about  the  seas 
break  and  roar,  the  storms  howl  and  the  solid 
steel  and  stone  work  of  their  lighthouse  homes 
shake  and  reverberate  to  the  tremendous  buf- 
feting of  the  elements.  Once  in  a  while  a 
lighthouse-tender  visits  them,  bringing  sup- 
plies, newspapers  and  magazines,  but  in  many 
places  the  whole  long  winter  is  passed  with- 
out a  single  visitor  or  a  word  from  the  outside 
world,  owing  to  the  great  ice-floes  which 
stretch  on  every  hand  and  prevent  any  vessel 
from  approaching.  In  these  outlying  light- 
houses life  is  terribly  lonesome  and  monoto- 
nous but  on  the  floating  lightships  it  is  even 
worse.  The  lighthouse  keeper  may  be  isolated, 
cut  off  from  his  fellows  and  surrounded  by 
the  tumbling  waves  and  howling  gales,  but  at 


84  THE  OCEAN 

least  he  has  a  strong,  fairly-comfortable  house 
in  which  to  live.  The  men  on  the  light- 
ships are  not  only  isolated  and  far  from  their 
friends  and  surrounded  by  stormy  winds  and 
waves,  but  are  robbed  of  the  secure  and  com- 
fortable quarters  of  the  lighthouse  as  well. 
The  lightships  are  staunch  and  seaworthy,  yet 
in  the  relentless  storms  of  their  exposed  an- 
chorages they  bob  and  toss  like  corks  and  not 
infrequently  their  cables  part  or  their  anchors 
drag  and  the  ships  go  drifting  out  to  sea. 
When  the  lightships  are  not  equipped  with 
power, — which  was  often  the  case  a  few  years 
ago, — the  vessels  may  drift  for  many  miles  out 
to  sea  and,  if  not  sighted  or  picked  up  by  pass- 
ing vessels,  the  keepers  may  find  themselves  on 
the  coast  of  another  far-distant  land  before 
they  are  rescued.  They  have  one  great  con- 
solation, however,  and  that  is  that  their  ships 
are  built  so  strongly  and  are  so  well  adapted 
to  riding  out  the  heaviest  seas  and  fiercest 
gales  that,  barring  collision  with  another  ship 
or  a  derelict,  or  unless  they  strike  a  rock  or 
reef,  they  have  little  to  fear,  for  seldom  indeed 
does  a  lightship  founder  through  stress  of 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      85 

weather  alone.  Nowadays,  moreover,  most 
lightships  are  provided  with  propellers  and 
power  and  if  their  anchors  drag  or  their  cables 
part  they  can  work  back  to  port  or  to  their 
station  without  much  difficulty. 

The  discovery  of  the  wireless  telegraph  also 
did  much  to  mitigate  the  hard  lives  of  the 
keepers  of  lightships  and  lighthouses,  for, 
equipped  with  wireless,  the  men  on  these  iso- 
lated safeguards  of  the  sea  may  communicate 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  and  talk  with  ships 
at  sea  and  in  case  of  accident  or  trouble  they 
can  call  for  assistance. 

In  many  instances  the  safety  of  vessels  de- 
mands lights  where  it  would  not  be  worth 
while  or  practical  to  build  a  lighthouse  or 
anchor  a  lightship.  Sometimes  these  spots  are 
inaccessible  to  lighthouse-tenders  or  are  sur- 
rounded with  so  many  shoals,  reefs,  or  rocks, 
or  so  long  locked  fast  in  ice  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  maintain  a  regular  lighthouse 
service.  At  other  points  the  shoals  or 
reefs  are  only  dangerous  to  comparatively 
small  vessels  and  it  would  not  pay  to  establish 
a  real  lighthouse.    Under  such  conditions  the 


86  THE  OCEAN 

usual  method  is  to  install  a  beacon  or  a  light- 
buoy.  These  are  towers  of  stone  or  iron,  or 
floating  iron  buoys,  securely  anchored  and 
bearing  bright  lights  which  operate  automat- 
ically. Such  beacons  and  gas-buoys  may  have 
either  steady  or  flashing  lights  and  as  they  re- 
quire attention  only  at  long  intervals  a  great 
many  of  them  are  in  use  along  our  coasts. 
While  lighthouses,  beacons,  etc.,  are  all  of 
the  utmost  importance  for  warning  mariners 
of  dangerous  spots  and  for  enabling  them 
to  learn  their  ship's  location  and  bearings,  yet 
sailors  would  find  it  a  most  difficult  matter,  by 
such  helps  alone,  to  pick  their  way  into  har- 
bours and  other  localities  with  which  they  are 
unfamiliar.  Buoys  are  used  to  enable  sailors 
to  find  their  way  among  reefs,  shoals  and  other 
obstructions,  and  to  those  familiar  with  the 
meanings  of  buoys,  they  serve  to  guide  the 
course  of  a  ship  just  as  plainly  as  sign-posts  at 
cross-roads  guide  travellers  by  land.  The 
landsman  finds  it  truly  marvellous  to  watch 
a  sailor  steam  or  sail  up  some  winding,  tortu- 
ous channel ;  turning  first  to  right  and  then  to 
left;  doubling  and  swinging  about,  with  noth- 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      87 

ing  to  guide  him  but  black  and  red  sticks  or 
huge,  coloured,  iron  cans  bobbing  about  in 
the  water. 

But  to  the  sailor  each  of  these  signs  or  buoys 
and  many  other  marks,  which  the  landsman 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA 

I.  Red  spar  buoy  2.  Black  spar  buoy  3.  Red  and  black  danger  buo^ 
4.  White  and  black  channel  buoy        5.  Anchorage  buoy 
6.  Red  nun  buoy    7.  Black  can  buoy    8.  Gas  buoy         9.  Bell  buoy 
10.  Whistling  buoy       11,  12,  13.  Perch  and  ball  beacons 

fails  to  note,  mean  a  certain  thing  and  the 
mariner  knows  that  if  he  follows  the  course 
indicated  by  the  buoys  he  will  be  perfectly 
safe. 

For  example,  he  knows  that  when  leav- 
ing a  harbour  he  must  pass  all  the  red 
buoys  on  the  left  or  port  side  of  his  ship 


88  THE  OCEAN 

and  all  black  buoys  on  the  right  or  starboard 
and  when  entering  a  harbour  he  must  do 
just  the  reverse  and  must  pass  the  red  ones  on 
his  right  and  the  black  ones  on  his  left.  So  too 
he  knows  that  other  parti-coloured  buoys  mean 
various  things;  that  a  buoy  with  horizontal 
stripes  of  red  and  black  means  danger  and 
must  be  given  a  wide  berth,  while  a  buoy 
marked  with  perpendicular  black  and  white 
stripes  means  mid-channel  and  may  be  passed 
on  either  side.  In  addition  each  buoy  is  num- 
bered, the  red  buoys  being  given  even  num- 
bers and  the  black  ones  odd  numbers,  so  the 
passing  sailor  may  know  at  a  glance  just  where 
he  is,  for  on  the  charts  every  buoy  is  plainly 
indicated  with  its  colour  and  number.  Now 
and  then  one  sees  a  buoy  very  different  from 
the  others ;  either  bearing  some  queer,  easily- 
identified  object  above  it,  such  as  a  keg,  cage, 
or  disk,  or  painted  in  sharply  contrasting  col- 
ours in  huge  squares  or  other  designs.  Each 
of  these  has  its  own  meaning  and  is  designated 
on  the  charts  and  the  officers  of  the  passing 
ships  have  only  to  compare  the  buoys  and  bea- 
cons with  their  charts  in  order  to  know  exactly 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      89 

how  to  steer,  even  though  they  have  never  been 
in  the  locality  before. 

From  all  this  you  may  see  how  really  simple 
it  is  for  a  good  mariner  to  find  his  way  into 
harbours  and  along  coasts  where  there  are 
lights,  beacons  and  buoys,  but  in  a  great  many 
places  there  are  none  of  these  safeguards  of 
the  sea  and  the  sailors  must  depend  upon  other 
methods  of  safely  navigating  their  vessels 
along  the  dangerous  shoals  and  reefs.  It  is  in 
this  work  that  charts  are  of  the  greatest  value 
and  a  sailor  without  charts  would  be  greatly 
handicapped  and  would  have  to  proceed  very 
slowly  and  cautiously  in  any  strange  locality. 
There  are  a  great  many  kinds  of  charts  includ- 
ing pilot  charts  of  the  great  oceans,  sailing 
charts  from  one  distant  point  to  another,  charts 
of  individual  countries  and  islands  and  har- 
bour charts.  The  pilot  charts  of  the  ocean  are 
very  elaborate  and  complete  and  to  the  lands- 
man they  appear  a  hopeless,  unmeaning  jum- 
ble of  red  and  blue  lines,  figures  and  symbols, 
letters  and  arrows,  queer,  wavy  lines,  areas  of 
shaded  lines  and  many  other  mysterious  and 
incomprehensible  signs.     In  reality  each  of 


90  THE  OCEAN 

these  things  has  a  definite  meaning  and  the 
mariner  or  pilot  can  read  and  understand  them 
as  readily  as  you  can  read  and  understand  an 
ordinary  printed  page.  Upon  these  ocean 
charts  are  plotted  the- various  courses  for  sail- 
ing vessels  and  steamers  from  port  to  port,  the 
tracks  of  storms  and  the  ocean  currents.  In 
addition  there  are  symbols  and  numbers  in- 
dicating the  areas  of  winds  and  calms  and 
the  direction  of  prevailing  winds;  the  regions 
of  fogs,  storms  and  rains;  the  magnetic  vari- 
ation of  the  compass ;  the  location  oi  icebergs 
and  ice-fields;  the  location  and  drift  of  dere- 
licts ;  the  location  of  drifting  buoys,  logs,  spars 
and  other  objects;  the  weather  and  storm  sig- 
nals of  the  various  countries  bordering  the  seas 
covered  by  the  charts,  as  well  as  much  other 
information  of  value  to  sailors. 

On  these  charts,  as  well  as  on  those  charts 
which  show  the  principal  sailing  routes  from 
one  port  to  another,  the  land  and  the  various 
harbours  are  on  a  very  small  scale  and  by 
these  charts  alone  sailors  could  never  find  their 
way  into  the  various  ports.  In  order  to  do  this 
they  must  have  coastwise  and  harbour  charts, 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      91 

each  of  which  covers  only  a  small  portion  of 
the  sea  and  land.  On  these  charts  the  vari- 
ous channels  are  marked  with  innumerable 
figures  showing  the  depths;  letters  designate 
the  character  of  the  bottom  at  various  points, 
and  all  rocks,  reefs  and  other  obstacles,  as  well 
as  all  the  various  buoys,  beacons  and  lights  are 
shown.  Moreover  these  charts  illustrate 
prominent  landmarks,  such  as  hills,  mountains, 
tall  trees  and  buildings,  etc.,  which  serve  as 
bearings  and  minute  detailed  sailing  directions 
are  also  included. 

With  such  a  chart  a  mariner  may  readily 
find  his  way  into  a  strange  harbour  or  may 
navigate  his  ship  through  strange  waters,  even 
though  there  are  no  buoys,  lights  or  similar 
guides.  By  frequent  soundings  with  the  lead, 
and  by  comparing  the  depths  and  the  samples 
of  bottom  with  the  chart,  the  captain  or  pilot 
of  the  ship  may  locate  the  position  of  his  ves- 
sel with  great  accuracy  and  by  proceeding 
slowly,  and  sounding  as  he  proceeds,  and 
watching  landmarks  and  bearings  he  may 
wend  his  way  into  most  difBcult  and  danger- 
ous spots  in  safety.    This  may  seem  very  mys- 


92  THE  OCEAN 

terious  to  a  landsman,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to 
understand  how  mere  depths  of  water  and  the 
tiny  samples  of  bottom,  brought  up  on  the 
grease  at  the  end  of  the  sounding-lead,  can 
tell  a  sailor  where  he  is.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  there  are  seldom  two  spots  in  any  locality 
where  the  depths  and  bottom  are  alike  or 
where  the  water  shoals  in  exactly  the  same 
manner.  Thus  if  the  lead  indicates  ten 
fathoms  and  muddy  bottom  and  at  the 
next  sounding  shows  eight  fathoms  and 
muddy  bottom,  the  sailor,  by  referring  to  the 
chart,  may  be  sure  he  is  on  or  near  the  spot 
where  the  soundings  and  bottom  agree 
with  those  designated  on  the  chart.  If,  by 
a  study  of  the  chart,  the  officer  finds  that  the 
proper  course  lies  to  the  north  and  has  a  depth 
of  nine  fathoms  and  a  sandy  bottom  he  has 
but  to  steer  in  that  direction  and  sound  and  if 
the  stated  depth  and  sandy  bottom  is  found  he 
knows  he  is  right,  whereas  if  a  different  depth 
or  bottom  is  encountered  he  can  still  locate 
his  position  by  the  chart.  Many  times  bear- 
ings on  shore  are  almost  as  useful  as  buoys 
or  lights  and  by  keeping  certain  prominent 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      93 

landmarks  in  line,  or  in  proper  relation  to  one 
another,  very  tortuous  and  difficult  channels 
may  be  followed. 

Of  course  in  thick  or  foggy  weather  it  is 
impossible  to  see  landmarks  or  lighthouses,  or 
even  beacons  and  buoys,  and  the  danger  of 
vessels  running  on  rocks  or  shoals  would  be 
very  great,  unless  some  means  were  provided 
for  warning  ships  and  letting  their  officers 
know  of  the  whereabouts  of  danger  spots. 
This  is  accomplished  by  means  of  bells,  sirens 
and  horns  which  are  sounded  during  thick 
weather.  Each  lighthouse  or  lightship  is  pro- 
vided with  a  fog  signal  of  some  sort  and,  in 
order  that  a  mariner  may  know  which  signal 
he  hears,  each  is  arranged  to  sound  at  definite, 
stated  intervals  or  in  a  distinct  manner.  Many 
of  the  most  dangerous  spots  are  not,  however, 
provided  with  either  lightships  or  lighthouses, 
and  in  such  cases  it  is  usual  to  establish  a  whis- 
tling-buoy or  a  bell-buoy.  The  former  is  a 
buoy  which  is  provided  with  a  horn  or  whistle 
operated  by  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  waves, 
while  the  bell-buoy  is  provided  with  a  large 
bell.    Beneath  the  bell  is  a  smooth  disk  upon 


94  THE  OCEAN 

which  a  round,  iron  ball  rolls  back  and  forth, 
thus  clanging  the  bell  with  the  least  motion  of 
the  buoy. 

Of  course  all  these  buoys,  lightships,  bea- 
cons and  lighthouses  require  care  and  atten- 
tion, for  if  even  one  buoy  goes  adrift,  one 
light  goes  out  or  one  of  these  safeguards  of 
the  sea  should  fail  to  operate  properly  there 
might  be  great  losses  in  ships  and  human  lives. 
In  order  to  give  all  these  things  proper  atten- 
tion the  Government  maintains  a  large  fleet  of 
lighthouse-tenders  whose  duty  it  is  to  visit  the 
various  ships  and  lighthouses,  carry  provisions 
and  supplies  to  the  keepers,  look  after  the  bea- 
cons and  buoys  and  watch  over  the  thousand 
and  one  details  of  the  service.  Buoys  cannot 
be  left  continually  in  the  sea,  for  after  a  com- 
paratively short  time  the  iron  buoys  become 
rusty,  the  wooden  buoys  worm-eaten,  and  both 
iron  and  wooden  ones  are  soon  covered  with 
such  a  thick  growth  of  seaweeds,  barnacles, 
etc.,  that  they  sink  deep  in  the  water  and  are 
not  easily  seen. 

Moreover,  during  the  cold,  stormy,  winter 
months,  the  expensive  iron  buoys  are  liable 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      95 

to  be  injured  or  carried  away  by  the  ice 
and  spar-buoys  of  wood  must  take  their  place. 
For  these  reasons  a  number  of  vessels  must  be 
kept  constantly  employed  in  taking  up  buoys 
and  putting  down  new  ones  and  to  simplify 
this  work  various  stations  are  established  at 
different  parts  of  the  coast  where  the  old  buoys 
are  repainted  and  cleaned,  the  new  ones  stored 
and  vast  quantities  of  supplies  and  apparatus 
are  kept  constantly  on  hand.  These  depots 
are  most  interesting  spots  for  here  one  may 
see  the  great  buoys  and  lights  at  close  quar- 
ters, may  examine  the  mechanism  by  which 
the  various  appliances  are  operated,  and  may 
obtain  a  good  insight  into  the  systems  and 
methods  by  which  the  mariners  are  protected 
by  these  safeguards  of  the  sea. 

Even  with  all  these  ingenious  and  elaborate 
efforts  to  'guard  and  protect  mariners  it 
often  becomes  impossible  for  a  ship  to  seek 
safety  in  a  harbour,  for  there  are  often  long 
stretches  of  exposed  coast  with  no  harbours  or 
sheltered  spots.  When  a  vessel  is  caught  in  a 
severe  storm  in  such  a  spot  she  is  in  great  dan- 
ger of  being  blown  onto  the  shore  and  wrecked 


96  THE  OCEAN 

and  to  prevent  such  disasters  the  Government 
has  provided  great  v^alls  of  rocks  called  break- 
waters, in  the  shelter  of  which  ships  may  lie 
in  safety  during  bad  weather.  At  nearly  every 
dangerous  spot  on  the  coast  there  are  life-sav- 
ing stations  where  hardy,  fearless  men  are 
constantly  on  watch  for  disabled  or  helpless 
vessels  and  where  every  possible  device  for 
life-saving  is  kept  ready  for  instant  use.  Here 
are  powerful,  staunch,  non-capsizable  and 
non-sinkable  life-boats,  life-lines,  breeches- 
buoys,  guns  for  throwing  lines  across  stranded 
ships,  life-belts  and  life-preservers,  and  count- 
less other  appliances  and  apparatus  for  saving 
the  sailors  and  passengers  on  any  vessels  that 
may  be  wrecked  in  the  vicinity.  Nearly  every 
one  of  these  stations,  lighthouses,  lightships 
and  similar  places  is  provided  with  wireless 
apparatus,  signal-flags  and  weather  and  storm 
signals,  and  by  means  of  these  they  can  com- 
municate with  passing  ships,  warn  them  of 
approaching  storms  and  in  many  other  ways 
aid  in  safeguarding  both  vessels  and  lives. 

Aboard  the  ships  there  are  still  other  safe- 
guards and  life-boats  and  rafts,  life-preservers, 


SAFEGUARDS  OF  THE  SEA      97 

life-belts,  fire-hose  and  pumps  arc  ever  on 
hand  to  prevent  loss  of  life,  ship  or  cargo  by 
any  of  the  numerous  dangers  of  the  sea.  All 
of  these  things  are  very  important  and  were 
they  always  kept  ready  and  in  good  order 
comparatively  few  lives  would  be  lost.  But 
unfortunately  familiarity  with  the  sea  often 
breeds  contempt  and  men  who  have  sailed  for 
years  and  years  without  loss  or  accident  fre- 
quently become  careless  and  allow  their  life- 
saving  appliances  to  become  useless  through 
rust,  decay  or  lack  of  care  and  inspection.  On 
well-regulated  ships  the  boat  and  fire  drills 
are  a  regular  part  of  the  routine.  As  in 
many  cases  the  men  never  know  when  the 
gongs  and  whistle  will  sound  the  call  to  boats 
and  pumps  and  never  can  tell  whether  it  is 
a  real  alarm  or  merely  a  practice  drill,  they 
become  very  expert  in  quickly  manning  and 
launching  the  boats  and  getting  the  hose  at 
work  and  there  is  little  excitement  or  dis- 
order. 

Still  in  spite  of  all  these  safeguards  on 
shore  and  sea,  and  even  aboard  the  ships  them- 
selves, there  are  numbers  of  vessels  wrecked 


98  THE  OCEAN 

and  destroyed  and  many  lives  sacrificed,  for 
it  i^s  impossible  to  guard  against  every  danger 
or  to  foresee  all  that  may  occur,  but  if  we  study 
the  statistics  we  shall  find,  that  compared  with 
the  immense  number  of  human  beings  who 
yearly  sail  forth  in  ships,  an  insignificant  num- 
ber are  lost  and  that  a  sea  voyage  is  one  of  the 
safest  means  of  travel  known. 


Chapter  VI 

LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  majority  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  deep  sea  have  never  been  seen 
by  man,  but  nevertheless  we  have  seen  thou- 
sands of  the  denizens  of  the  ocean  bed  and 
know  that  in  this  strange  world  dwell  some  of 
the  weirdest  and  most  remarkable  creatures 
that  can  be  imagined. 

Only  within  very  recent  times  has  anything 
been  known  of  the  mysteries  of  the  deep  sea 
and  a  few  years  ago  any  one  who  described  or 
figured  such  marvellous  creatures  as  are  now 
known  to  exist  would  have  been  dubbed  a 
"nature  faker"  of  the  most  outrageous  sort. 

We  owe  our  knowledge  of  the  deep  sea  and 
its  inhabitants  principally  to  the  United  States 
Fish  Commission  in  this  country  and  to  vari- 
ous European  expeditions  abroad,  although 
numerous  wealthy  individuals, — notably  the 
late  Alexander  Agassiz  and  the  Prince  of 

99 


loo  THE  OCEAN 

Monaco, — have  spent  fortunes  in  fitting  out 
scientific  expeditions  to  add  to  our  knowledge 
of  this  strange  submarine  world. 

For  many  years  the  United  States  Fish 
Commission  carried  on  a  systematic  work,  ex- 
ploring the  bottom  of  the  North  Atlantic, 
under  the  direction  of  the  late  Prof.  Spencer 
F.  Baird  and  Prof.  Addison  E.  Verrill  and  the 
various  reports  of  these  and  other  naturalists 
are  as  wonderful  as  any  fairy  tale,  although 
told  in  the  dry  and  matter-of-fact  way  of  prac- 
tical scientists. 

'  The  earliest  work  of  the  Fish  Commission 
was  carried  on  under  the  greatest  difficulties 
and  small,  obsolete,  naval  vessels  or  tugs  and 
makeshift  apparatus  were  employed.  Even 
under  such  conditions  the  results  of  the  deep- 
sea  work  were  so  remarkable  that  very  soon 
special  vessels  were  designed  and  built  for  the 
purpose,  apparatus  was  invented  and  made  for 
the  work  and  laboratories  were  constructed 
with  every  facility  and  convenience  for  carry- 
ing on  investigations  of  the  ocean  and  its  life. 

The  principal  apparatus  used  in  exploring 
the  deep  seas  are  trawls  and  dredges.     The 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     loi 

former  are  merely  large,  strong  nets  attached 
to  a  stout,  iron  frame  formed  like  runners 
(Fig.  i)  and  which  are  dragged  slowly  along 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.    The  dredges  used 


INSTRUMENTS  FOR  COLLECTING  DEEP  SEA  LIFE 


are  fine-meshed  nets,  or  bags,  of  stout  twine 
attached  to  a  steel  or  iron  frame  with  flaring 
scrapers  and  protected  by  a  bottomless  bag 
of  stout  canvas  (Fig.  2).  Although  both  the 
dredge  and  the  trawl  are  used  by  dragging 
them  along  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  yet  each  has 
its  special  purpose  and  is  employed  under 


102  THE  OCEAN 

different  conditions.  While  the  dredge  may 
be  used  on  almost  any  kind  of  bottom  and 
scoops  up  the  mud,  sand  and  any  slow-moving 
creatures  which  are  in  its  track,  ^he  trawl  is 
used  only  on  comparatively  smooth  bottoms 
and  does  not  scrape  up  the  mud,  but  merely 
catches  living  creatures,  plants  and  other 
forms  of  life  with  which  it  comes  in  con- 
tact. 

In  addition  to  the  trawl  and  dredge  another 
very  useful  piece  of  apparatus  is  used  which 
is  known  as  the  ^'Tangles"  (Fig.  3).  This  is 
simply  an  iron  bar  with  rollers  or  runners  on 
the  ends,  and  to  it  are  attached  a  num- 
ber of  chains  covered  with  masses  of  unrav- 
elled rope.  When  the  tangles  are  drawn  over 
the  bottom  the  strands  of  rope  become  en- 
tangled in  the  spines,  branches  or  legs  of  va- 
rious creatures  and  hold  them  fast  and  by  this 
simple  method  vast  numbers  of  strange  forms 
of  life  are  obtained  which  would  escape  both 
the  trawl  and  dredge. 

While  these  three  instruments  bring  up  in- 
credible numbers  of  deep-sea  denizens,  yet  the 
spots  which  they  actually  touch  and  the  locali- 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     103^ 

ties  over  which  they  are  dragged,  are  infinitesi- 
mal as  compared  to  the  whole  vast  bed  of  the 
sea,  and  the  very  fact  that  they  do  catch  such 
numbers  of  creatures  proves  how  thickly  pop- 
ulated the  depths  of  the  ocean  must  be  and 
how  the  bed  of  the  sea  must  fairly  swarm  with 
animal  life. 

Moreover,  a  great  many  of  the  more  active 
creatures  are  able  to  escape  the  slowly-mov- 
ing dredge  or  trawl,  while  still  others  are  far 
too  large  and  bulky  either  to  be  enmeshed  in 
a  trawl  or  captured  in  a  dredge.  It  is  there- 
fore highly  probable  that  the  animals  we  ob- 
tain by  these  methods  are  no  more  representa- 
tive of  all  the  denizens  of  the  deep  than  land 
animals  captured  in  a  similar  way  would  be 
typical  of  all  the  living  creatures  which 
inhabit  the  earth. 

^  The  great  bulk  of  animals  obtained  from  the 
deep  sea  are  small,  sluggish  and  belong  to  the 
lowest  forms  of  animal  life.  Among  them 
are  starfishes,  sea  urchins,  sponges,  corals,  gor- 
gonias,  shells  and  molluscs,  crustaceans, 
worms,  hydroids,  bryozoans,  sea-anemones  and 
similar  creatures,  but  many  of  them  so  unlike 


I04  THE  OCEAN 

their  representatives  in  shoal  water,  so  mar- 
vellously coloured,  so  gigantic  in  size  or  so 
remarkable  in  form  that  they  are  scarcely 
recognisable.  In  addition  to  these  lower  ani- 
mals are  a  great  many  squids,  and  octopi,  and 
numbers  of  fish,  and  among  these  occur  the 
strangest  and  weirdest  of  forms. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  enormous 
pressures  which  obtain  at  great  depths  as  well 
as  the  Stygian  darkness  and  intense  cold  and 
nearly  every  living  creature  drawn  from  its 
natural  home  on  the  ocean's  bed  is  specially 
formed  and  peculiarly  adapted  to  life  under 
such  conditions.  Many  of  them  are  so  flabby, 
pulpy  and  jelly-like  that  they  almost  drop  to 
pieces  when  they  reach  the  surface,  although 
in  their  natural  homes  the  very  flabbiness  of 
their  tissues  enables  them  to  withstand  the 
great  pressure  of  the  water  which  is  equal  in 
all  directions, — both  outside  and  within  their 
bodies. 

At  first  thought  it  seems  strange  to  think  of 
any  creature  existing  under  the  enormous 
pressure  of  several  thousand  fathoms  of  water, 
but  we  must  remember  that  water  is  practic- 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     105 

ally  non-compressible  and  that  animals  whose 
tissues  are  filled  with  water  do  not  suffer  owing 
to  the  pressure  being  equal  on  all  sides,  where- 
as, if  their  tissues  contained  air,  they  would  be 
squeezed  to  a  fraction  of  their  original  size. 
A  rise  of  an  inch  in  the  barometer  piles  half 
a  ton  or  so  upon  our  own  bodies  and  yet  we 
suffer  no  inconvenience  as  the  pressure  is  equal 
on  all  sides.  So  the  deep-sea  creatures  can 
exist  through  large  variations  in  water  pres- 
sure and  many  species  are  found  at  depths  of 
from  six  to  two  thousand  fathoms. 

When  drawn  to  the  surface,  however,  these 
deep-sea  creatures  fairly  burst  with  the  release 
of  the  pressure  under  which  they  have  lived. 
The  eyes  are  forced  from  their  sockets,  the 
scales  and  skin  fall  off,  the  swimming  blad- 
ders of  fishes  are  forced  from  their  mouths  and 
oftentimes  the  specimens  are  scarcely  more 
than  detached  fragments  by  the  time  they  can 
be  preserved. 

-  The  sole  occupation  of  these  deep-sea  crea- 
tures is  to  eat,  breed  and  escape  their  natural 
enemies  and  with  many  species  eating  appears 
to  be  of  more  importance  than  anything  else. 


io6  THE  OCEAN 

Some  of  the  deep-sea  fishes  have  such  huge 
mouths  that  they  are  really  nothing  more  than 
living  funnels,  while  the  enormous  teeth  of 
others  give  the  owners  a  horribly  ferocious 
and  savage  appearance.  Some  of  these  fishes 
are  shown  in  the  drawing  on  the  page  oppo- 
site (Figs.  1-5). 

Others  have  great  membranous  stomachs 
which  are  as  flexible  as  rubber  and  specimens 
have  often  been  captured  which  had  swal- 
lowed other  fishes  far  larger  than  themselves, 
the  unfortunate  victims  still  being  enclosed 
in  the  elastic  stomachs  of  their  captors  when 
the  latter  were  dumped  out  of  the  trawl  upon 
the  steamer's  deck.  One  of  these  fishes  is 
popularly  known  as  the  "Black  Swallower" 

(Fig-4)- 
Many  of  the  deep-sea  fishes  are  blind,  but 

provided  sometimes  with  slender  feelers  or 
filaments  which  enable  them  to  locate  their 
prey  and  other  objects  without  the  aid  of  sight. 
Others  have  enormous  eyes  which  at  first  seem 
out  of  place  and  useless  in  their  environment 
of  perpetual  darkness.  But  when  we  study 
them  closely  we  find  that  these  huge  eyes  no 


WEIRD   FISH   FROM   THE   OCEAN    DEPTHS 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     107 

doubt  prove  very  useful,  for  while  the  sea  it- 
self is  never  penetrated  by  the  light  of  day  yet 
innumerable  species  of  the  creatures  which 
inhabit  it  carry  their  own  light  about  with 
them. 

Nearly  all  the  lower  forms  of  life,  and  many 
of  the  fishes,  which  inhabit  the  deep-sea  are 
furnished  with  phosphorescent,  light-produc- 
ing organs.  Some  are  provided  with  regular 
search  lights,  others  have  rows  of  small  lights 
along  their  sides,  others  have  luminous  fins  or 
light-giving  organs  on  the  head,  while  some 
have  long,  movable  appendages  bearing  bril- 
liant lights  at  their  extremities.  These 
strange  creatures  not  only  illuminate  their 
own  way  with  these  natural  lamps  as  they 
swim  about,  but  no  doubt  locate  and  dazzle 
their  prey  as  well,  or  attract  other  creatures 
within  their  reach,  just  as  a  lamp  or  candle 
attracts  moths. 

For  all  we  know  the  natural  impenetrable 
blackness  of  the  depths  of  the  sea  may  be  bril- 
liantly lit  up  by  its  countless  myriads  of  phos- 
phorescent inhabitants.  Even  the  tiniest  mi- 
croscopic creatures   are  phosphorescent  and 


io8  THE  OCEAN 

we  all  know  how  brilliant  are  the  lambent, 
phosphorescent  waves  which  we  sometimes 
see  at  the  surface  on  dark,  warm,  summer 
nights.  Knowing  what  wonderfully  gro- 
tesque and  "impossible"  creatures  actually  in- 
habit the  deep-sea  and  realising  how  little 
chance  we  have  of  capturing  the  larger  and 
more  active  forms  of  life  at  great  depths,  it 
is  impossible  to  say  what  may  and  what  may 
not  exist  in  that  vast,  unknown  world. 

There,  far  out  of  sight  and  safe  from  mol- 
estation or  capture,  there  may  be  gigantic  and 
terrible  creatures  which  have  survived  since 
far-distant  prehistoric  times.  For  all  we 
know,  great  marine  reptiles  may  still  dwell  in 
the  caverns  and  crevices  of  submarine  moun- 
tains thousands  of  fathoms  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  the  sea.  Of  course  such  creatures,  if 
they  do  exist,  must  be  very  different  from  any 
living  or  fossil  creatures  with  which  we  are 
familiar.  Through  the  countless  ages  since 
animal  life  first  appeared  upon  the  earth  there 
has  been  plenty  of  time  for  nature  to  adapt 
almost  any  form  of  life  to  an  existence  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea,  and  at  almost  every  haul 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     109 

of  a  dredge  or  trawl  from  the  depths  of  the 
ocean  strange  creatures  are  obtained  whose 
anatomy,  forms  and  characteristics  upset  all 
our  preconceived  ideas  of  nature's  laws  in 
respect  to  animal  life. 

Moreover,  we  know  very  little  about  the 
real  life  of  prehistoric  creatures.  We  find 
their  skeletons  preserved  in  rocks,  sand  and 
clay  in  the  form  of  fossils,  but  in  all  proba- 
bility only  a  very  small  proportion  of  the 
creatures  of  those  far-off  times  have  been  pre- 
served in  this  way  and  every  year  new  and 
more  remarkable  fossils  are  discovered. 

At  one  time  we  know  the  sea  covered  nearly 
the  entire  globe  and  countless  thousands  of 
strange  animals  swarmed  in  the  vast  waste  of 
waters.  Here  and  there,  as  the  sea  receded, 
these  creatures  were  left  stranded  or  were 
trapped  within  lagoons,  bays  and  inlets  and 
their  bones  were  left  to  be  found  by  us  as  fos- 
sils. 

The  great  majority  of  the  marine  crea- 
tures of  those  past  times  no  doubt  escaped  the 
fate  of  their  fellows  and  continued  to  dwell 
safely  in  the  sea  as  the  oceans  became  smaller 


no  THE  OCEAN 

and  smaller  and  the  land  took  form  and  In- 
creased in  area. 

^  We  know,  for  instance,  that  in  prehistoric 
times  gigantic  sharks  swarmed  in  the  sea, 
sharks  which  were  many  times  larger  than  the 
largest  of  modern  man-eaters,  for  in  Florida, 
Carolina  and  many  other  places,  as  well  as 
upon  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  their  teeth  are 
found  by  bushels, — teeth  acute  as  needles, 
with  sharp,  saw-like  edges  and  six  inches  or 
more  in  length  and  breadth.  In  other  places 
we  find  thousands  of  vertebrae  of  huge  por- 
poise-like animals,  which  bore  no  resemblance 
to  our  graceful,  playful  "sea-pigs"  of  to-day, 
for  the  ancient  creatures  were  long,  slender, 
snake-like  and  of  gigantic  size.  In  still  other 
places  we  find  the  remains  of  wonderful 
swimming- reptiles ;  some  long  and  slender 
and  fish-like  in  form  with  jaws  like  crocodiles ; 
others  with  great  clumsy  bodies  and  elongated 
snake-like  necks  and  heads,  while  still  others 
were  eel-like  in  form  and  were  veritable  sea- 
serpents. 

Many  people,  among  them  prominent  scien- 
tists, believe  that  a  few  survivors  of  some  of 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     in 

these  strange  prehistoric  creatures  still  exist 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea  and  that  an  occasional 
individual,  disabled,  sick  or  injured  comes  to 
the  surface  and  is  seen  by  man  and  reported 
as  a  "sea-serpent." 

V  To  most  people  the  idea  of  the  "sea-serpent" 
really  existing  may  seem  preposterous  and 
foolish,  for  the  sea-serpent  is  so  often  reported 
and  so  many  people  have  claimed  to  have  seen 
it  that  we  have  come  to  consider  it  as  a  myth 
and  think  the  stories  about  it  pure  "yarns." 
The  very  fact  that  so  many  people  claim  to 
have  seen  the  sea-serpent  and  that  a  great  many 
of  these  individuals  are  men  of  little  or  no  im- 
agination and  of  unquestionable  veracity,  goes 
far  towards  convincing  scientists  that  there 
must  be  some  foundation  for  the  stories. 
Moreover,  the  most  trustworthy  of  alleged  ob- 
servers of  sea-serpents  do  not  agree  in  their  de- 
scriptions of  the  monsters  and  this  leads  many 
well-informed  naturalists  to  the  firm  convic- 
tion that  not  one,  but  many,  sea-serpents  really 
live  in  the  ocean.  In  fact  we  actually  know 
that  sea-serpents  do  exist  and  while  none  of 
those  known  to  science  would  answer  the  de- 


IW  THE  OCEAN 

scriptions  of  those  which  mariners  and  others 
claim  to  have  seen,  yet  unusually  large  speci- 
mens of  their  kind  might  easily  be  called  ver- 
itable sea-serpents. 

The  strange  "Ribbon-Fish"  is  one  such 
species.  It  is  supposed  to  be  an  inhabitant  of 
great  depths  and  only  to  appear  on  the  surface 
when  sick,  or  injured,  but  in  reality  nothing 
definite  is  known  of  its  habits  or  natural  home, 
as  all  the  specimens  hitherto  taken  have  been 
found  floating  upon  the  sea  or  washed  ashore. 
One  individual,  nearly  twenty  feet  in  length, 
dashed  itself  upon  a  beach  in  Bermuda  and 
was  seen  swimming  through  the  water  by  sev- 
eral people  who  stated  that  it  propelled  itself 
by  loops  or  convolutions,  exactly  as  the  sea-ser- 
pent is  described  as  swimming  by  those  who 
have  said  they  saw  this  sea-monster.  Other 
ribbon-fish  have  been  taken  which  were  over 
twenty  feet  in  length,  and  there  is  no  real  rea- 
son why  this  fish  should  not  occasionally  grow 
to  a  size  of  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  feet. 
If  the  ribbon-fish  does  reach  such  a  size  there 
is  little  doubt  that  it  is  the  real,  or  one  of  the 
real,  sea-serpents.   The  long  filaments  near  the 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     T13 

head,  the  high,  serrated  dorsal-fin  and  the 
snake-like  body  are  perfectly  in  accord  with 
the  majority  of  descriptions  of  sea-serpents  as 
given  by  the  most  trustworthy  observers.  The 
so-called  "mane"  is  well  represented  in  the 
fleshy,  ornamental  appendages  about  the  head 
of  the  fish  and  the  "saw-like  crest"  of  the  sea- 
serpent  has  its  counterpart  in  the  stiff  spines 
and  web  of  the  fin  along  the  back  of  the  fish. 

In  the  Indian  Ocean  and  other  parts  of  the 
world  long,  eel-like  sharks  occur,  while  in 
other  portions  of  the  sea  true  snakes,  which 
are  very  venomous,  are  found  in  immense 
numbers.  These  snakes  are  small,  it  is  true, 
but  if  we  can  imagine  that  related  creatures 
reach  large  size  we  can  readily  believe  that 
they  might  well  be  called  sea-serpents. 

The  belief  in  sea-serpents  is  very  ancient 
and  it  may  be  within  the  bounds  of  possibility 
that  early  man  was  familiar  with  huge  sea- 
reptiles  which  have  since  become  extinct  or 
nearly  so.  Virgil's  story  of  Laocoon  and  his 
sons  being  strangled  by  sea-snakes  is  a  familiar 
example  of  the  world-wide  belief  in  such  crea- 
tures>  but  it  was  not  until  1755  that  any  ex- 


114  THE  OCEAN 

tended  scientific  account  of  such  sea-monsters 
was  printed.  This  account  was  written  by 
Pontoppidan  in  his  ''Natural  History  of  Nor- 
way," an  English  edition  of  which  was  printed 
in  London.  The  author  was  a  clergyman  and 
bishop  and  evidently  took  great  care  to  inves- 
tigate the  authenticity  of  the  accounts  he  had 
heard.  In  fact  he  himself  doubted  the  exist- 
ence of  a  sea-serpent  until  so  much  affirmative 
evidence  was  produced  that  he  was  convinced 
that  such  creatures  existed,  and  he  called  scep- 
tics "enemies  of  credulity,"  and  in  his  book 
he  quotes  many  sworn  statements  of  persons 
who  had  seen  the  monster. 

Pontoppidan  claimed  that  the  sea-serpent 
sheds  its  skin  like  true  snakes  and  stated  that 
a  cast-off  skin  was  found  at  Kopperwiig  and 
used  as  a  table  cover.  He  also  mentions  the 
fact  that  the  sea-snake  laid  a  week  in  a  creek 
in  the  vicinity  and  left  the  old  skin  behind. 
In  1742  Hans  Egede  published  a  "Natural 
History  of  Greenland"  in  which  he  tells  of  a 
marvellous  sea-monster  which  was  observed  in 
Davis  Strait.  He  states  that  "it  was  such  an 
exceedingly  large  animal  that  when  it  raised 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     115 

itself  out  of  water  its  head  reached  as  high 
as  a  mast  and  the  body  was  throughout  as  thick 
as  a  ship,  compared  with  which  it  was  three 
or  four  times  as  long."  It  had  a  long,  pointed 
muzzle  and  spouted  like  a  whale.  On  the 
front  part  of  its  body  were  two  great,  broad 
feet  or  fins  and  the  uneven  skin  appeared 
armed  with  scales.  Otherwise  it  had  the  form 
of  a  snake,  especially  in  regard  to  its  posterior 
part,  and  when  it  went  under  the  water  it 
threw  itself  backwards  and  stuck  its  tail  out 
of  the  water  at  a  height  equal  to  a  ship's 
length. 

This  same  creature,  or  one  like  it,  was  the 
serpent  figured  by  Pontoppidan  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  worthy  bishop  merely  copied  the 
picture  in  Egede's  book.  Owing  to  the  vari- 
ous accounts  he  investigated,  Pontoppidan  de- 
cided, as  have  modern  investigators,  that  there 
were  various  species  of  sea-serpents.  In  fact 
if  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  such  mon- 
sters at  all  we  must  be  convinced  that  there 
are  a  number  of  strange  creatures  which  are 
popularly  called  sea-serpents.  Aside  from 
the  variation  in  size,  which  is  of  practically 


ii6  THE  OCEAN 

no  importance,  sea-serpents  of  various  colours 
have  been  reported ;  some  had  shaggy  manes, 
others  long,  bare  necks,  some  had  back  fins, 
some  were  smooth  and  slimy,  others  rough  and 
scaly,  and  one  at  least  resembled  a  huge  turtle 
with  an  enormously-attenuated  snake-like 
neck.  In  nearly  every  case,  however,  the  ob- 
servers state  that  the  monsters  move  with  their 
heads  projecting  from  the  sea,  but  while  some 
declare  that  the  serpents  "glide,"  others  say 
that  they  progress  by  "loops,"  or  "convolu- 
tions," by  which  "they  draw  themselves 
through  the  water." 

Of  course  a  great  many  of  the  accounts 
may  have  been  based  on  inanimate  objects  and 
a  vivid  imagination,  and  in  two  instances 
at  least,  this  is  known  to  have  been  the 
case. 

The  captains  of  the  ships  Brazil  and  Pekin 
both  reported  that  they  met  what  they  sup- 
posed was  a  terrible  sea-monster  and  in  each 
case  they  launched  boats  to  attack  the  crea- 
ture with  harpoons  and  guns,  only  to  discover 
that  the  supposed  sea-serpent  was  merely  a 
huge  mass  of  seaweed,  torn  from  its  ocean  bed 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     117 

and  floating  with  its  huge  roots  projecting 
from  the  water,  thus  giving  the  appearance  of 
a  snake-like  head  and  a  neck  covered  with  a 
huge,  saw-like  crest. 

To  scoff  at  any  tale  of  things  with  which 
we  are  unfamiliar  or  to  set  down  as  lies  or 
imagination  stories  of  sea-serpents,  merely  be- 
cause we  have  not  actually  proved  their  exist- 
ence, is  very  foolish. 

For  centuries  the  old  Norse  stories  of  the 
"Kraken"  were  considered  as  fabulous  as  the 
tales  of  the  Phoenix,  Centaur  or  other  similar 
beings,  but  we  now  know  that  the  "Kraken" 
stories  were  founded  on  facts  and  that  the  old 
Norsemen  had  good  reason  to  tell  their  tales 
of  the  strange  sea-monsters.  It  was  accident 
that  first  proved  the  existence  of  the  "Kraken" 
when,  after  a  heavy  storm,  a  gigantic  sea-mon- 
ster was  washed  upon  the  shores  of  New- 
foundland. Descriptions  of  this  creature  and 
portions  of  its  anatomy  were  sent  to  Prof.  A. 
E.  Verrill  at  Yale,  who  at  once  realised  that 
the  strange  monster  was  a  gigantic  squid  or 
cuttlefish.  Later,  others  were  cast  upon  the 
shores  or  captured  in  a  disabled  or  sick  con- 


ii8  THE  OCEAN 

dition  at  sea,  and  within  a  few  years  several 
species  of  these  hitherto  unknown  monsters 
were  described.  Although  in  form  and  ap- 
pearance much  like  the  common  little  squid 
of  our  sea  coasts,  these  huge  fellows  were 
equipped  with  arms  and  tentacles  thirty  feet 
or  more  in  length  and  had  great  bodies  nine 
or  ten  feet  long  and  seven  to  ten  feet  in  cir- 
cumference. 

Once  known  to  science  the  giant  squids  were 
studied  and  to-day  we  know  that  they  inhabit 
portions  of  the  deep  sea  and  seldom  come  to 
the  surface  save  by  accident,  and,  moreover, 
we  have  discovered  that  these  remarkable 
creatures,  which  for  many  centuries  were  con- 
sidered as  fabulous,  form  the  great  bulk  of  the 
food  of  sperm  whales.  If  such  enormous  an- 
imals could  exist  unknown  for  many  years  and 
if  species  so  closely  related  to  the  little  puny 
squids  of  our  coasts  could  so  greatly  exceed 
them  in  size,  there  is  no  valid  reason  for  not 
believing  that  almost  any  other  form  of  ma- 
rine life  may  have  unknown  relatives  of  gi- 
gantic size. 

Only  a  few  years  ago  a  strange  object  was 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     119 

washed  upon  our  Florida  coast  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  wonderful  giant  squids,  photo- 
graphs of  this  new  "sea  monster"  and  pieces 
of  its  substance  were  sent  to  Prof.  Verrill.  At 
first  it  seemed  as  if  this  would  prove  another 
unknown  and  gigantic  cuttlefish,  but  upon 
examination  it  turned  out  to  be  a  portion  of 
some  very  different  creature.  Although  some 
twenty  feet  in  length  and  forty  feet  in  circum- 
ference and  weighing  many  tons,  yet  this  great 
mass  of  tough,  fibrous  flesh  was  a  mere  frag- 
ment of  some  titanic  marine  monster  and  in 
its  structure  and  shape  so  different  from  any 
known  form  of  animal  that  no  scientist  could 
even  guess  at  its  origin  and  it  has  gone  down 
to  posterity  as  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  sea. 
At  any  time,  however,  the  world  may  be 
surprised  and  naturalists  may  be  made  happy 
by  the  discovery  of  the  real  sea-serpent,  for 
the  ways  of  the  sea  are  strange  and  its  mys- 
teries are  past  our  understanding.  A  subter- 
ranean convulsion,  such  as  an  earthquake  or 
a  submarine  volcanic  eruption,  may  injure  or 
kill  vast  numbers  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
ocean's   depths   and   floating  upwards   these 


I20  THE  OCEAN 

creatures  may  throw  a  great  deal  of  new  light 
upon  the  hitherto  unsolved  mysteries  of  deep- 
sea  life. 

Such  things  have  happened  in  the  past  and 
may  happen  again  at  any  time.  Many  years 
ago  the  naturalists  of  the  Fish  Commission 
discovered  a  new  species  of  fish  which  was 
called  the  "Tile  Fish."  This  fish  was  excel- 
lent eating  and  in  a  short  time  the  deep-sea 
fishermen  caught  quantities  of  them  and  sold 
them  in  the  markets.  Suddenly  the  surface 
of  the  ocean  was  found  strewn  with  dead  and 
dying  tile-fish  which  had  been  injured  or 
killed  by  some  unknown  agency,  and  the  once 
abundant  fishes  disappeared  entirely  from 
their  former  haunts. 

No  doubt  some  tremendous  submarine 
earthquake  or  other  cataclysm  produced  this 
sudden  strange  annihilation  of  the  tile-fish 
and  it  may  have  been  something  of  the  same 
sort  which  destroyed  the  giant  squids  and  thus 
gave  them  to  our  scientists.*  Should  a  similar 
disaster  occur  at  the  right  time  and  in  the 

♦The  tile  fishes  have  again  appeared  in  their  old  haunts  (1915) 
and  are  now  being  brought  to  the  New  York  markets  for  sale. 


LIFE  IN  THE  GREAT  DEPTHS     121 

right  place  still  more  wonderful  creatures  may 
rise  from  the  depths  of  the  ocean  to  the  sur- 
face, and  the  sea  "giving  up  its  dead"  may 
yet  prove  to  all  that  the  sea-serpent  is  not  a 
myth  but  an  actuality  as  real  as  the  Kraken. 


Chapter  VII 

LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  THE  SURFACE 

Strange  and  interesting  as  is  the  life  in  the 
great  depths  of  the  sea  the  creatures  which 
dwell  in  the  water  itself,  and  on  the  bottom 
at  moderate  depths,  are  fully  as  interesting. 
Within  the  ocean  there  is  not  one,  but  many 
worlds  of  life  and  while  the  denizens  of  one 
of  these  submarine  worlds  may  sometimes 
travel  to  another,  or  may  be  common  to  sey- 
eral,  yet,  on  the  whole,  each  individual  spe- 
cies lives  and  dies  under  certain  conditions  and 
in  a  certain  depth  of  water.  Near  the  shores 
and  between  high  and  low  water  mark  is  one 
world  of  marine  life;  in  shallow  water,  but 
never  left  bare  by  the  tides,  is  a  second  world; 
at  a  greater  depth  is  still  another  and  so  in 
deeper  and  deeper  water  other  worlds  occur 
until  the  very  deepest  waters  of  the  seas  are 
reached. 
In  addition  to  these  various  zones  of  life, 

122 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    123 

containing  the  creatures  that  live  upon  the 
bottom  of  the  sea,  there  are  similar  zones  in 
the  water  itself  and  each  is  inhabited  by 
certain  forms  of  life  that  wander  but  little 
above  or  below  the  depth  to  which  nature  has 
adapted  them.  At  the  very  surface  of  the  sea 
there  live  and  thrive  vast  numbers  of  animals 
which  never  descend  to  the  bottom,  even  in 
shallow  water.  Many  of  the  creatures  which 
are  found  at  some  certain  depth  live  in  other 
stages  of  their  existence  in  entirely  different 
parts  of  the  sea.  The  young  of  many  shells, 
crustaceans  and  other  marine  animals  swim 
freely  about  at  the  surface  and  only  descend 
to  the  bottom  when  they  attain  a  definite 
stage  in  their  growth,  while  others  live,  dur- 
ing their  youth,  upon  the  bottom  and  in  after- 
life rise  to  the  surface  of  the  sea  and  never 
again  descend  to  their  birthplace. 

For  this  reason  scientists  are  often  greatly 
puzzled  and  many  years  have  been  devoted  to 
studying  what  was  considered  a  new  form  of 
marine  life,  only  to  discover  eventually  that 
it  was  but  one  stage  of  some  well-known  crea- 
ture whose  life-history  had  been  hitherto  un- 


124  THE  OCEAN 

known.  A  number  of  these  early  forms  of 
marine  animals  are  shown  in  the  illustration 
on  the  opposite  page. 

A  person  unacquainted  with  these  mysteries 
of  ocean  life  would  never  connect  a  tiny,  live- 
ly, rapidly-swimming  creature,  such  as  shown 
in  Fig.  3,  with  the  prosaic,  immovable  oyster, 
and  yet  this  odd  being  is  merely  an  oyster  in 
its  childhood,  so  to  speak.  So  also  the  baby 
starfishes  swim  gaily  about  in  their  youth  and 
appear  as  in  Fig.  4,  and  the  youngsters  of 
many  other  shellfish  travel  hither  and  thither 
upon  the  surface  of  the  sea  in  early  life.  Per- 
haps the  strangest  of  all  such  creatures  are 
the  barnacles,  for  the  shell-clad  barnacles, 
which  we  find  attached  to  rocks  and  other  sub- 
merged objects,  are  in  reality  true  crustaceans 
like  crabs  and  lobsters,  and  in  their  young 
stages  swim  about  readily  and  appear  as  in 
Fig.  9.  Even  young  corals  swim  about  and 
in  many  cases  baby  crabs  and  the  young  of 
other  free-moving  or  swimming  animals  bear 
no  resemblance  to  their  parents. 

Although  science  has  established  the  iden- 
tity of  many  of  these  odd  creatures  and  has 


FORMS   OF   SURFACE   LIFE 

I.  Young  Lobster         2.  Young  crab  3.  Young  oyster 

4.  Young  starfish  5.  Young  sea  urchin  6.  Young  worm 

7.  A  Pteropod  or  swimming  shell  8.  Young  sea  snail 
9.  Young  barnacle 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    125 

carefully  traced  their  life-histories,  yet  count- 
less other  creatures  are  known  only  from  a 
few  specimens,  or  in  one  stage  of  their  exist- 
ence, and  their  lives  and  habits  still  remain 
mysteries  of  the  sea. 

If  you  look  upon  the  surface  of  the  ocean, 
as  you  travel  over  it  in  a  boat,  it  may  appear 
barren  of  life  and  the  only  objects  you  see 
may  be  bits  of  floating  sea-weed,  odds  and 
ends  of  trash  and  rubbish.  But  drag  a  fine- 
meshed  net  behind  the  boat  and  empty  it  into 
a  basin  of  clear  sea  water  and  you  will  be 
amazed  at  the  myriads  of  strange  animals  that 
have  been  obtained  from  the  apparently  life- 
less surface. 

Most  of  these  creatures  are  very  small  and 
thousands  of  them  will  escape  your  observa- 
tion entirely,  as  they  are  perfectly  transparent 
and  of  almost  microscopic  size,  but  if  you 
wait  until  dark  and  agitate  the  water  they  will 
make  their  presence  known  by  bright  flashes 
of  phosphorescence.  A  large  proportion  of 
these  very  minute  creatures  are  the  young  or 
larval  forms  of  larger  marine  animals,  but  in 
addition  there  are  inconceivable  numbers  of 


126  THE  OCEAN 

tiny  animals  known  as  diatoms  and  forami- 
nifera. 

Although  extremely  small  these  creatures 
are  marvellously  beautiful  in  form  and  their 
fragile,  calcareous  shells  or  skeletons  are  far 
prettier  and  more  regular  than  any  sea-shell. 
The  variety  of  shapes  is  almost  endless  and 
yet  every  species  has  a  form  peculiar  to  itself 
and  may  be  easily  recognised.  These  little 
animals  may  seem  of  little  account  and  be- 
neath your  notice,  but  in  reality  they  are  of 
immense  importance  and  without  them  the 
great,  teeming  oceans  would  be  barren,  life- 
less wastes.  All  over  the  ocean  and  at  nearly 
all  depths  these  minute  creatures  swarm  and 
as  in  a  few  gallons  of  water  there  may  be 
millions  of  them,  you  can  realise  what  incon- 
ceivably tremendous  hordes  must  be  scattered 
through  the  seas. 

These  tiny  things  are  constantly  being  de- 
voured by  larger  marine  animals  and  upon 
the  larger  creatures  still  larger  animals  feed, 
so  you  see  that  really  a  great  deal  of  marine 
life  depends  upon  these  almost  microscopic 
creatures. 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    127 

'  Moreover,  they  are  constantly  dying  and 
their  skeletons  are  ever  sinking  slowly  to  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  and  for  some  50°  north  and 
south  of  the  equator  and  at  depths  up  to 
two  thousand  four  hundred  fathoms,  the 
bed  of  the  ocean  is  largely  composed  of  their 
shells.  This  formation  is  known  as  "Globi- 
gerina  Ooze"  or  "Foraminiferous  Ooze,"  and 
in  many  places  it  forms  a  large  part  of  the 
-so-called  "sand-banks"  which  block  harbours 
and  channels. 

This  ooze  would  be  just  as  thick  throughout 
the  entire  bed  of  the  ocean  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  at  great  depths  the  tiny  calcareous 
shells  are  dissolved.  All  the  dead  and  decay- 
ing animal  matter  also  sinks  slowly  down  in 
the  sea,  but  in  the  dark,  cold  water  it  decom- 
poses very  gradually  and  in  many  places  it 
forms  a  thin,  slimy  layer  of  a  gelatinous  sub- 
stance which  for  many  years  puzzled  scien- 
tists. At  first  it  was  thought  to  be  a  special 
organism,  created  for  the  sole  purpose  of  pro- 
viding food  for  deep-sea  life,  but  it  is  now 
known  to  be  nothing  more  nor  less  than  de- 


128  THE  OCEAN 

caying  material  from  countless  millions  of 
dead  inhabitants  of  the  sea. 

Of  course  the  skeletons  and  shells  of  all  the 
marine  creatures  which  die  sink  to  the  bottom 
of  the  ocean,  but  the  tiny  diatoms  and  fora- 
minifera  so  greatly  outnumber  all  other  forms 
of  ocean  life  that  their  remains  are  the  most 
in  evidence  in  most  places.  So  marvellously 
abundant  are  these  minute  creatures  that  a 
single  ounce  of  sand  sometimes  contains  over 
three  millions  of  their  shells.  In  prehistoric 
times  the  ancestors  of  these  foraminifera  were 
even  more  numerous  and  their  fossilised  skel- 
etons have  formed  the  bulk  of  the  chalk  cliffs 
of  England,  the  building  stone  of  Paris  and 
even  the  mighty  blocks  from  which  the  Egyp- 
tian pyramids  were  constructed. 

All  this  is  very  interesting  when  we  give  it 
a  thought,  and  it  all  goes  to  prove  what  a 
wonderful  thing  the  ocean  and  its  life  really 
is,  but  to  study  ocean  life  at  its  best  we  must 
look  to  the  fairly  shallow  water  on  the  great 
submerged  plateaus,  the  submarine  mountain- 
tops  and  reefs  and  near  the  coasts  of  continents 
and  islands.     In  such  places  the  sea  sustains 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    129 

a  wonderful  amount  of  life  which  forms  a 
world,  marvellous  in  the  variety  of  its  deni- 
zens and  as  fascinating  as  fairy-land. 

In  shallow  water  the  sunlight  penetrates  for 
considerable  depths,  the  water  is  not  under 
enormous  pressure  and  the  temperature  varies 
with  the  distance  north  or  south  of  the  equa- 
tor. Hence,  in  moderately  shallow  water 
many  forms  of  life  thrive  which  would  find 
existence  impossible  in  the  great  depths,  and 
in  various  parts  of  the  world  different  ani- 
mals occur  which  are  peculiar  to  their  partic- 
ular localities  and  cannot  exist  in  waters  of 
other  depths  or  temperatures. 

Beneath  the  water  is  a  fierce,  never-ceasing 
struggle  for  existence  between  the  various  ani- 
mals and  nearly  every  marine  animal  feeds 
upon  some  others,  so  that  in  the  shallow 
waters,  where  life  is  most  varied  and  abun- 
dant, we  find  the  greatest  opportunity  to 
learn  of  the  lives  and  habits  of  marine  crea- 
tures. Here,  too,  fish  find  the  most  food  and 
in  places,  such  as  George's  Banks,  the  Grand 
Banks  and  the  coral  reefs  of  tropical  seas,  fish- 
ermen find  the  best  ground  for  their  labours. 


I30  THE  OCEAN 

Oftentimes  the  strong  lines  and  sharp  hooks 
of  these  fishermen  become  entangled  in  the 
strange  animal  growths  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea  or  odd  and  remarkable  creatures  are  cap- 
tured accidentally.  Such  unusual  specimens, 
brought  home  by  the  fishermen,  and  many  of 
them  have  never  been  obtained  in  any  other 
v^ay,  have  been  of  incalculable  value  in  learn- 
ing what  we  know  of  ocean  life. 

Not  only  have  the  inhabitants  of  the  ocean 
taught  us  a  great  deal  about  the  sea  and  its 
life,  but  in  addition  they  have  been  of  the  ut- 
most importance  in  helping  us  to  solve  many 
mysteries  of  life  and  of  the  laws  of  nature 
which  have  a  great  bearing  on  the  whole  ani- 
mal kingdom.  Here,  in  the  teeming  sea,  the 
weak  invariably  succumbs  to  the  strong,  un- 
less provided  with  some  means  of  protection 
which  enables  it  to  escape  destruction  by  its 
enemies.  As  a  result  of  this,  many  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  sea  exhibit  marvellous  and 
peculiar  forms,  colours,  or  habits  which  at 
first  sight  appear  without  significance  or  rea- 
son, but  which  are  really  of  the  most  vital 
importance  to  the  creatures  themselves  and 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE     131 

have  aided  naturalists  in  discovering  some  of 
the  greatest  truths  in  regard  to  nature. 

If  you  have  examined  the  surface  animals 
you  cannot  have  helped  noticing  that  the 
largest  proportion  of  them  are  nearly  or  quite 
transparent  and  that  only  the  eyes,  some  of 
the  internal  organs,  etc.,  can  be  distinguished 
as  they  swim  rapidly  about  in  clear  water. 
Even  fairly  good-sized  fish  may  sometimes  be 
found  which  are  perfectly  transparent  and 
only  their  eyes  and  the  contents  of  their  stom- 
achs are  visible.  Some  of  these  are  slender 
and  eel-like  and  others  are  flat  and  look  like 
queer  little  flatfish  or  flounders.  The  eel-like 
creatures  are  the  young  of  the  big  Conger  eels 
and  for  many  years  were  considered  a  differ- 
ent creature.  You  will  have  to  laugh  if  you 
catch  some  of  these  funny,  transparent  sur- 
face fishes,  for  they  can  see  straight  through 
their  own  heads  and,  as  they  swim  about,  they 
seem  to  wink  at  you  with  the  eye  on  the  op- 
posite side. 

While  you  may  be  greatly  interested  and 
amused  at  these  ghostlike  fishes  the  fact  that 
they  are  so  transparent  may  not  appear  of  any 


132  THE  OCEAN 

great  importance,  but  in  reality  it  is  a  most 
wise  provision  of  nature  and  prevents  the 
wholesale  destruction  of  these  little  creatures, 
many  of  which  are  the  young  forms  of  animals 
that  in  later  life  are  very  valuable  to  man.  If 
these  surface  creatures  were  opaque,  or  bright- 
ly-coloured, they  would  easily  be  seen  by  fishes 
and  other  hungry  animals  swimming  below 
the  surface  and  would  be  plainly  visible 
to  sea-birds  hovering  above  the  waves.  Their 
transparency,  however,  protects  them  from 
these  numerous  enemies  until,  in  later  life, 
they  assume  other  forms,  colours  and  habits 
and  are  better  able  to  look  after  their  own 
safety. 

Even  as  it  is  vast  numbers  are  devoured  and 
only  a  very  small  percentage  ever  reach  full 
size.  In  the  same  way,  if  we  study  the  crea- 
tures in  shallow  water,  or  even  at  great  depths, 
we  will  find,  when  once  we  know  their  habits, 
that  their  strange  forms  and  peculiar  colours 
serve  equally  useful  purposes.  The  bril- 
liantly-tinted and  conspicuous  things  are  usu- 
ally poisonous  or  possess  stings  and  thus  warn 
other  creatures  of  the  danger  of  attacking 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    133 

them.  Some  of  the  forms  so  closely  resemble 
bits  of  rock,  seaweed  or  other  objects  that  we 
cannot  distinguish  them  until  they  move  about, 
and  other  creatures,  which  are  not  provided 
with  natural  means  of  protection,  have  learned 
to  conceal  themselves  by  planting  various  bits 
of  seaweed  and  other  growths  upon  their  own 
shells  or  skins.  More  wonderful  than  all  we 
will  find  that  many  soft,  helpless  animals  have 
become  lifelong  companions  of  dangerous, 
poisonous  creatures  for  the  sake  of  the  protec- 
tion their  strange  friends  afford,  thus  forming 
veritable  submarine  partnerships. 

I  have  said  that  many  marine  animals  can- 
not live  away  from  their  normal  homes  on 
account  of  the  difference  in  temperature  of 
the  water,  but  there  are  times  when  certain 
creatures  may  wander  far  from  their  ordinary 
haunts  and  may  live  and  thrive  for  a  long  time 
thousands  of  miles  from  where  they  usually 
occur.  For  example,  the  water  of  the  Gulf 
Stream  is  much  warmer  than  the  surround- 
ing ocean,  even  as  far  north  as  New  England, 
and  during  the  summer  months  many  strange 
tropical  marine  creatures  are  carried  north  by 


134  THE  OCEAN 

this  great  ocean  river  and  are  washed  upon 
our  shores  or  captured  by  fishermen.  No 
doubt  it  was  in  some  such  manner  that  many 
marine  animals  have  been  scattered  far  and 
wide  and  are  found  in  various  parts  of  the 
ocean,  and  one  of  the  greatest  problems  that 
oceanographers  and  scientists  have  had  to 
solve  is  how  and  why  some  marine  creatures 
are  found  in  widely  separated  parts  of  the  sea 
while  closely  related  species  are  confined  to  a 
single  locality. 

In  shallow  water  the  appearance  of  the 
ocean's  bed  must  be  very  different  from  that 
at  great  depths,  for  in  the  warmer  waters  and 
where  more  or  less  sunlight  filters  through 
from  the  surface,  the  bottom  of  the  sea  is  cov- 
ered w^ith  a  perfect  forest  of  strange  growths ; 
a  veritable  jungle  of  remarkable  animal  and 
vegetable  life. 

Just  as  the  greatest  abundance  of  terrestrial 
animal-life  is  found  in  the  tropical  lands,  so 
in  tropical  seas  we  find  the  greatest  number 
and  forms  of  marine  life,  and  just  as  the  vege- 
tation of  tropical  countries  is  ranker,  more 
luxuriant  and  more  brilliant  than  the  forest 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    135 

growths  of  the  north,  so  the  marine  growth 
of  the  warm,  equatorial  seas  is  more  luxuriant, 
more  varied  and  ranker  than  submarine 
growth  in  northern  seas.  This  only  applies 
to  the  shallower  waters,  however,  for  at  great 
depths  the  water  is  always  cold  and  many  of 
the  same  animals  occur  in  both  tropical  and 
northern  seas. 

We  naturally  always  associate  corals  with 
the  tropical  seas,  for  the  greater  number  of 
corals  are  natives  of  warm  waters  and,  more- 
over, the  majority  of  tropical  corals  can  live 
only  within  a  hundred  feet  or  so  of  the  sur- 
face; but  even  in  the  far  north  corals  occur 
abundantly  in  deep  water.  Some  are  found 
as  far  north  as  Greenland,  and  one  species, 
which  is  common  in  northern  seas,  is  found  at 
low-water  mark  on  the  New  England  coast. 
So,  too,  sponges,  which  we  always  associate 
with  the  tropics,  are  not  confined  to  tropical 
seas  but  great  numbers  occur  in  the  waters  of 
the  polar  regions  and  in  all  seas  between  the 
tropics  and  the  arctic  and  antarctic  circles. 
Many  of  the  more  noteworthy  and  largest 
forms  of  these  northern  sponges  are  found 


136  THE  OCEAN 

only  in  deep  water,  as  in  the  case  of  corals, 
but  like  the  corals  other  sponges  occur  along 
our  shores  at  low-water  mark. 

Many  other  very  interesting  forms  of  ma- 
rine life  which  in  the  tropics  are  found  only  in 
deep  water,  may  be  discovered  along  the  shore 
in  shallow  water  in  the  north,  for  the  limits  of 
the  various  zones  of  under-sea  life  are  greatly 
influenced  by  the  temperature  of  the  water. 
No  doubt,  if  we  could  descend  to  the  moderate 
depths  of  the  ocean  in  the  north  we  should 
find  the  bottom  covered  with  a  dense  forest 
of  seaweeds,  sponges,  gorgonias,  corals  and 
other  marine  life,  for  we  know,  from  the  great 
numbers  of  specimens  that  are  sometimes 
drawn  up  in  a  single  haul  of  a  trawl  or 
dredge,  that  in  places  the  bottom  must  be  cov- 
ered by  such  a  living  jungle.  The  only  trou- 
ble is  that  in  northern  waters  such  places  are 
in  rather  deep  water  and  are  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  eyes.  In  the  tropics,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  ocean  bed  teems  with  mul- 
titudes of  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life 
within  a  few  feet  of  the  surface,  or  even  be- 
tween high  and  low-water  mark,  and  more- 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    137 

over  the  water  is  so  clear  and  transparent  that 
man  can  look  upon  this  marvellous  marine 
world  beneath  the  surface  of  the  sea. 

Even  more  remarkable  still,  the  bottom  of 
the  sea  in  the  tropics  has  been  actually  photo- 
graphed and  one  may  sit  in  a  northern  theatre 
and  see  moving  pictures  of  the  bed  of  the  trop- 
ical sea  th'  own  upon  the  screen.  These  won- 
derful pictures,  taken  by  the  Williamson 
Brothers  with  apparatus  which  they  invented 
and  made  for  the  purpose,  show  the  marvel- 
lous abundance  and  variety  of  submarine  life 
to  the  very  greatest  advantage.  But  even  these 
pictures  fall  far  short  of  giving  us  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  jungles  of  growths  and  the  forests 
of  corals  which  cover  the  bed  of  tropical  seas 
in  many  places.  Divers  who  have  descended 
in  certain  localities  report  corals  as  large  as 
forest  trees;  great,  massive  growths  with 
trunks  several  feet  in  diameter  and  with  broad 
spreading  limbs  interlacing  on  every  side  and 
forming  a  roof  of  tangled,  impenetrable 
branches  very  similar  to  a  forest  on  land. 

In  addition  to  these  lofty,  branching,  tree- 
like forms  there  are  great,  rounded,  dome- 


138  THE  OCEAN 

shaped  masses  of  brain-corals,  often  many  feet 
in  diameter  and  height,  while  innumerable 
other  forms  grow  upon  ledges,  rocks  and  from 
the  bottom  on  every  hand.  As  corals,  when 
living,  are  of  every  imaginable  tint  and  shade 
of  colour  we  can  imagine  what  a  strange, 
wonderful,  brightly-coloured  world  such  a 
place  would  be.  Think  of  great  living  trees 
of  fawn,  purple,  pink  and  red;  of  huge,  bril- 
liant-orange domes  scattered  on  every  side;  of 
growths  of  lavender,  scarlet,  emerald  and  blue 
clinging  to  rocks  and  cliffs;  of  waving  sea- 
fans  of  golden-yellow;  of  immense  masses  of 
inky-black  sea-rods  springing  like  bunches  of 
grass  or  reeds  from  among  the  more  brightly- 
coloured  surroundings,  and  you  will  have 
some  idea  of  the  appearance  of  these  marvel- 
lous jungles  of  marine  life.  In  place  of  birds 
and  butterflies,  gaudy  red,  blue,  purple,  green 
and  gold  fishes  dart  hither  and  thither  among 
the  branches  of  coral;  great  octopi  lurk  in 
crevices  of  the  rocks  and  caves  and  giant  scar- 
let crabs  scuttle  over  the  bottom  of  the  sea  to 
hide  themselves  from  sight  among  clumps  of 
purple  and  lavender  weeds, 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    139 

In  many  places  these  coral  trees  and  the 
more  massive  rocky  corals  grow  upwards  until 
they  reach  the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  in  nu- 
merous parts  of  the  West  Indies  and  in  other 
warm  latitudes  one  may  actually  walk  about 
among  these  wonderful  growths  at  low  water. 

When  the  corals  thus  reach  the  surface,  or 
to  within  a  short  distance  of  it,  they  form  the 
so-called  coral-reefs  and  in  many  places  they 
are  a  great  menace  to  ships.  The  largest  of 
all  coral-reefs  is  the  Great  Barrier  Reef  off 
the  western  coast  of  Australia  where,  for  hun- 
dreds of  miles,  the  corals  grow  by  countless 
millions  and  are  exposed  at  low  water,  form- 
ing a  veritable  wonderland  for  any  one  inter- 
ested in  marine  life. 

Although  such  reefs  are  dangerous  to  mari- 
ners, yet  they  are  very  useful  as  well,  for  they 
break  the  force  of  the  sea  and  waves  and  pro- 
tect the  shores  and  in  many  places  ships  find 
safe  anchorages  from  storms  in  the  shelter  of 
coral-reefs.  In  this  way  one  of  the  greatest 
dangers  of  the  sea  may  be  utilised  for  man's 
advantage  and  protection. 

Where  these  coral  reefs  are  exposed  to  the 


I40  THE  OCEAN 

force  of  the  waves  they  are  constantly  being 
broken  off  at  the  surface  and  the  bits  of  coral, 
lodging  among  the  living  growths  and  piling 
up  on  the  bottom,  gradually  form  a  solid 
mass.  About  the  sides  of  this  the  living  corals 
continue  to  grow  and  spread  and  in  time  a 
little  islet  appears  above  the  breaking  waves. 
Slowly  but  surely  the  little  spot  of  coral  in- 
creases in  size,  bits  of  floating  weed  and  wood 
are  added  to  it,  seeds  and  nuts  find  lodgment 
in  the  crevices,  vegetable  life  appears  and 
eventually  the  once-submerged  reef  becomes 
a  true  coral-island  with  nodding  palms  and 
rich  green  vegetation  covering  its  surface. 
Sometimes  the  corals  may  grow  in  more  or 
less  circular  form  with  deep  water  in  the  cen- 
tre and  the  islets  formed  retain  this  circular 
shape  and  are  known  as  "atolls." 

But  the  circular  form  of  most  atolls  is  due 
to  the  corals  growing  about  the  rims  of  sub- 
merged volcanic  craters.  Other  atolls,  known 
as  "Serpuline  Atolls,"  are  produced  in  quite 
a  different  manner.  These  seldom  are  of 
large  size  and  are  composed  mainly  of  the 
hard,  calcareous  tubes  of  a  group  of  marine 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    141 

worms  known  as  "Serpulae,"  although  corals 
are  usually  found  in  large  numbers  among 
them.  The  animals  grow  thickly  upon  the 
wave-washed  rocks  between  high  and  low- 
water  mark  and  their  hard  shells  and  constant 
growth  protect  the  outer  surface  of  the  rocks 
from  the  action  of  the  seas  which  constantly 
dash  against  them.  The  falling  spray  and 
water  soon  wear  away  the  unprotected  top 
of  the  rock,  however,  and  in  time  leave  only 
a  narrow  rim,  covered  with  the  growth  of 
serpula  and  coral,  which  then  appears  exactly 
like  a  true  atoll  in  miniature.  These  little 
atolls  are  very  common  in  Bermuda  and  are 
known  locally  as  '^Boilers,"  from  the  fact  that 
the  surf  constantly  breaks  or  boils  upon  them. 

Reef-building  corals  can  live  only  in  warm 
waters  and  so  coral  islands  are  never  seen  in 
the  north,  the  most  northern  of  all  living 
coral-reefs  being  those  of  Bermuda. 

Although  these  wonderful  forms  of  marine 
life  are  confined  to  warm  seas,  yet  we  must 
not  think  that  the  arctic  and  antarctic  waters 
are  devoid  of  animal  life  in  shallow  water. 
The  polar  seas  fairly  swarm  with  marine  crea- 


142  THE  OCEAN 

tures,  and  in  those  cold  and  dreary  oceans  are 
found  some  of  the  most  remarkable  and  in- 
teresting forms  of  all  sea  animals  and  among 
them  are  the  largest  animals  that  we  know  of 
in  the  world. 

Giants  are  always  interesting,  whether  they 
are  human,  animal  or  vegetable,  and  while  in 
past  ages  nearly  all  divisions  of  the  animal 
kingdom  boasted  of  giants  of  far  greater  size 
than  those  of  the  present  day,  yet  even  now 
gigantic  creatures  exist  in  numbers  in  the  sea. 
On  land  the  giant  animals  of  prehistoric  times 
were  mostly  stupid,  slothful  creatures  incapa- 
ble of  self-defence  and  without  brains  enough 
to  protect  their  own  eggs  or  young,  and  they 
rapidly  succumbed  to  more  active  and  intel- 
ligent creatures  until  all  but  a  few  representa- 
tives, such  as  the  elephant,  rhinoceros,  etc., 
were  exterminated.  In  the  seas,  however,  the 
great  creatures  were  less  liable  to  destruction, 
and  while  many  of  these  were  exterminated, 
others,  such  as  the  sharks  and  whales,  survived, 
and  to-day  some  of  these  reach  almost  as  gi- 
gantic dimensions  as  their  ancestors  of  pre- 
historic times. 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    143 

The  whales  are  the  largest  and  the  best 
known  of  all  marine  giants,  and  oddly  enough 
these  enormous  creatures  have  descended  from 
land  giants.  At  first  sight  one  sees  little  or  no 
resemblance  between  whales  and  any  form  of 
terrestrial  animal,  and  indeed  their  form  is 
so  fish-like  and  they  are  so  strictly  maritime 
in  their  habits  that  many  people  consider  them 
fish.  In  their  life-history,  anatomy  and  many 
other  important  points  they  are  far  more  like 
land  animals  than  fish,  however,  and  even  a 
few  moments'  study  will  prove  how  erroneous 
and  foolish  it  is  to  confuse  these  great  crea- 
tures with  true  fish.  While  fish  breathe  water, 
from  which  the  air  is  separated  by  means  of 
organs  called  gills,  whales  breathe  air  and 
separate  the  life-giving  oxygen  from  the  other 
gases  by  internal  lungs  like  land  animals. 
Moreover,  fishes  are  cold-blooded  creatures, 
whereas  whales  are  warm,  red-blooded  ani- 
mals, and  in  addition  whales  suckle  their  own 
young  like  other  mammals.  Merely  because 
they  live  in  the  sea  and  propel  themselves 
about  by  their  tails  and  flippers  is  no  reason 
for  confusing  them  with  fish,  for  seals,  wal- 


144  THE  OCEAN 

ruses  and  similar  animals  do  the  same  and 
yet  no  one  would  think  of  calling  a  seal  a 
fish. 

Whales,  porpoises,  narwhals  and  several 
other  species  of  large  marine  animals  are  very 
nearly  related  and  if  the  skeletons  of  some  of 
these  are  examined  we  will  find  that  beneath 
the  flesh  and  skin  the  bones  of  diminutive  hind 
legs  may  still  be  seen.  Once  upon  a  time  all 
such  creatures  had  well-developed  legs  and 
lived,  at  least  part  of  the  time,  on  land,  but  ow- 
ing to  various  circumstances  they  spent  more 
and  more  time  in  the  water  until  at  last  they 
abandoned  the  land  entirely  and  took  up  their 
life  in  the  sea,  and  their  legs,  for  want  of  use, 
gradually  disappeared,  while  their  fore  feet 
developed  into  flippers.  Because  they  forsook 
the  land  and  dwelt  in  the  sea  they  were  free 
from  the  attacks  of  other  creatures,  and  no 
doubt  this  very  fact  was  a  most  important 
cause  of  their  having  survived  through  all  the 
countless  ages  to  the  present  time. 

Although  whales  are  found  in  all  oceans 
the  largest  species  dwell  in  the  Arctic  and 
Antarctic  seas,   and  strangely  enough  these 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    145 

largest  of  all  living  animals  feed  entirely  upon 
the  smallest  and  most  insignificant  forms  of 
marine  life.  Indeed,  so  small  are  the  animals 
upon  which  the  arctic  whales  feed  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  a  whale  to  capture 
enough  of  these  tiny  creatures  to  keep  him 
alive  if  he  had  ordinary  teeth.  To  enable 
them  to  subsist  upon  the  tiny  atoms  of  life  in 
the  ocean,  nature  has  provided  the  Right 
Whales  with  specially-developed  mouth  or- 
gans and  growths  which  are  entirely  different 
from  those  possessed  by  any  other  creature. 
This  remarkable  structure  is  called  "whale- 
bone" or  "baleen,"  and  is  a  horny  growth  like 
the  close-set  teeth  of  a  gigantic  comb.  When 
the  whale  is  hungry  he  swims  with  open  mouth 
through  the  sea  and  then,  closing  his  jaws,  ex- 
pels the  water  between  the  strips  of  whale- 
bone. The  water  passes  out,  but  the  baleen, 
acting  like  a  huge  sieve  or  strainer,  prevents 
the  tiny  animals  in  the  water  from  escaping 
and  the  whale  gulps  these  down  greedily.  In 
this  remarkable  manner  the  various  species  of 
Right  Whales  or  Baleen  Whales  gather  their 
supply  of  food  and  you  can  therefore  see  how 


146  THE  OCEAN 

important  the  abundance  of  small  surface-life 
proves  to  these  great  creatures.  There  is, 
however,  another  group  of  whales  which  have 
absolutely  different  habits  and  to  whom  the 
absence  or  presence  of  swarming  tiny  crea- 
tures in  the  water  makes  no  difference.  These 
are  the  Sperm  Whales  and  they  inhabit  the 
warm  and  temperate  seas.  While  nature  pro- 
vided their  cousins,  the  Right  Whales,  with 
the  remarkable  whalebone  and  left  them  with- 
out teeth,  she  gave  the  Sperm  Whales  a  set 
of  splendid  sharp-pointed,  ivory  teeth,  with  no 
whalebone.  The  reason  for  this  great  differ- 
ence between  the  Right  and  the  Sperm  Whales 
is  readily  understood  when  we  know  their 
habits,  for  the  active,  sharp-toothed  Sperm 
Whales  feed  upon  large  marine  creatures  and 
dive  to  great  depths  in  search  of  their  prey. 
The  favourite  food  of  Sperm  Whales  is  the 
giant  squids  I  have  mentioned  in  another 
chapter,  and  many  species  of  these  deep-sea 
devil-fishes  have  been  described  from  frag- 
ments of  their  anatomy  found  in  the  stomachs 
of  Sperm  Whales. 
While  whales  are  the  largest  of  all  ani- 


LIFE  AT  AND  NEAR  SURFACE    147 

mals,  yet  many  true  fish  grow  almost  as 
large,  and  several  species  of  the  seal  family 
may  also  be  considered  as  giants  of  the  sea. 

Our  common  seals  and  even  the  Sea  Bears 
or  fur-seals,  and  the  Sea  Lions  are  far  from 
gigantic,  but  the  great  Walrus  is  a  true  giant 
and  in  the  Antarctic  the  huge  Sea  Elephants 
grow  to  still  more  enormous  size.  All  of  the 
seal  family,  however,  are  really  land  animals 
which  spend  a  large  part  of  their  life  in  the 
water,  and  unlike  the  whales,  they  can  remain 
out  of  water  for  long  periods  and  can  travel 
readily  for  considerable  distances  on  land. 
Still  more  remarkable  than  the  seals,  and  in 
some  ways  forming  a  sort  of  connecting  link 
between  them  and  the  whales,  are  the  strange 
creatures  known  as  Manatees  and  Dugongs. 
These  are  inhabitants  of  tropical  waters  and 
while  they  can  drag  themselves  upon  the  shores 
to  sun  themselves,  yet  they  spend  nearly  all 
of  their  lives  beneath  the  surface  of  the  sea. 
Unlike  the  whales  and  seals,  which  feed  upon 
animals  and  therefore  belong  to  the  carnivo- 
rous group  of  mammals,  the  manatees  and 
dugongs  are  vegetarians  and  subsist  upon  sea- 


148  THE  OCEAN 

weeds,  marine-grass  and  other  forms  of  vege- 
tation. 

Beyond  a  doubt  the  ancestors  of  these  "sea 
cows"  were  slow-moving,  browsing  beasts 
which  dwelt  upon  the  land,  just  as  the  pre- 
historic ancestors  of  the  seals  and  whales  were 
savage,  meat-eating  creatures  which  roamed 
among  the  swamps  and  rushes  of  the  coasts  in 
those  far-off  times.  While  so  very  different 
in  habits  these  several  forms  of  ancient  animal 
life  saved  their  descendants  from  total  de- 
struction by  taking  refuge  in  the  sea. 

All  this  we  know,  just  as  we  know  that  every 
form  of  marine  life,  from  the  smallest  micro- 
scopic diatom  to  the  giant  whales,  has  its 
place  and  its  importance  in  the  ocean  world, 
but  just  how  such  things  came  about  and  just 
what  took  place  in  those  dim  ages  of  the  past 
is  another  unsolved  mystery  of  the  sea. 


Chapter  VIII 

THE  STORY  THE  SEA  HAS  TOLD 

You  may  wonder  how  we  know  these  things, 
how  scientists  can  be  sure  that  the  ancestors 
of  whales,  seals  and  manatees  lived  on  land, 
how  naturalists  can  prove  that  certain  occur- 
rences took  place  or  that  certain  things  existed 
in  the  immeasurably  distant  prehistoric  times. 

Really  there  is  nothing  puzzling,  nothing 
mysterious  about  it,  for  the  sea  has  left  its 
story  plainly  written  for  those  who  know  how 
to  read  it  and  it  is  just  as  foolish  to  refuse  to 
believe  this  story  as  it  would  be  to  refuse  to 
believe  a  real  book  merely  because  it  was 
printed  in  a  foreign  language  which  some  of 
us  cannot  read. 

The  story  that  the  sea  has  left  for  scientists 
to  read  and  interpret  is  far  more  enduring 
than  any  book  ever  written  by  man,  for  the 
story  of  the  sea  is  engraved  in  solid  rock  and 

is  as  lasting  as  the  world  itself,  and  while  its 

149 


I50  THE  OCEAN 

first  chapters  were  written  countless  millions 
of  years  ago,  yet  Old  Ocean  has  not  yet  fin- 
ished its  book,  but  day  in  and  day  out  is  add- 
ing new  pages  to  its  history. 

The  greatest  portion  of  the  ocean's  story  is 
written  upon  its  shores  and  at  any  time,  if  you 
walk  along  the  seashore,  you  may  see  the  wind 
and  waves,  the  bits  of  flotsam  and  jetsam  and 
the  countless  tiny  marine  animals  busily  writ- 
ing and  illustrating  the  story  of  the  sea. 

We  speak  of  the  shores  of  the  sea  as  if  they 
were  hard  and  fast  boundaries,  but  in  reality 
the  shores  are  not  constant  and  everywhere 
they  are  ceaselessly  changing,  so  that  what  is 
the  shore  to-day  may  not  be  the  shore  at  all 
in  a  short  time,  and  in  the  sea's  story  each  of 
these  changes  is  carefully  and  indelibly  re- 
corded and  forms  a  paragraph,  a  page  or  a 
chapter. 

Wherever  the  sea  meets  the  land  there  are 
shores  of  some  sort.  In  one  spot  they  may  be 
smooth,  almost  level  sand-beaches,  at  another 
they  may  be  rough,  rugged  and  rocky,  at  an- 
other the  clififs  may  rise  abruptly  from  the 
waves,  while  at  still   another  place  broad, 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD     151 

slimy,  mud-flats  may  be  exposed  between  the 
tides. 

In  each  and  every  case,  however,  the  effect 
of  the  sea  is  plainly  seen.  The  bases  and  faces 
of  the  rocky  cliffs  are  worn,  broken  and  carved 
by  the  beating  of  the  waves ;  the  sand  is  pound- 
ed firm  and  compact  by  the  sea  and  its  shore- 
ward limit  is  marked  by  low  ridges  or  hills 
of  loose,  drifting  sand  and  coarse  sedge  and 
grass.  Everywhere  upon  the  surface  of  the 
sand-beaches  and  mud-flats  are  the  irregular, 
wavy  lines  that  mark  the  lapping  edges  of  re- 
ceding waves,  while,  zigzagging  over  them, 
are  the  trails  left  by  crawling  snails,  scurry- 
ing crabs  and  other  creatures.  If  we  should 
dig  into  the  sand  and  mud  we  would  find 
countless  creatures  living  in  holes,  while  dead 
shells,  crabs  and  other  hard-shelled  creatures 
lie  about  in  profusion.  Even  if  the  sea  itself 
was  nowhere  in  sight  you  would  know  you 
were  on  the  seashore  by  these  infallible  signs 
and  even  under  the  cliffs,  or  upon  the  rock- 
strewn  parts  of  the  shore,  you  would  recognise 
the  presence  of  the  sea  by  the  wave-worn 
rocks,  the  rounded  stones  and  pebbles  and  the 


152  THE  OCEAN 

dead  shells.  Perchance  you  may  see  some 
prominent  landmark,  such  as  a  bent  or  twisted 
tree,  an  old  stone  dock  or  some  queerly- 
formed  cliff  near  the  sea.  The  old,  gnarled 
tree  may  be  close  to  the  water's  edge,  with  its 
roots  washed  bare  of  earth  by  the  high-flung 
waves  of  winter's  storms.  The  broken-down 
dock  may  be  high  and  dry  and  many  yards 
from  the  water,  or  the  cliff  which  attracted 
your  attention  may  be  several  feet  above  the 
tide  and  yet  appear  as  if  carved  by  the  action 
of  the  waves.  You  may  wonder  why  the  tree 
should  grow  so  close  to  the  salt  water;  why 
the  dock  should  have  been  built  so  far  from 
the  edge  of  the  shore  or  how  the  rocks  could 
have  been  smoothed  and  cut  far  higher  than 
the  heaviest  seas  can  reach. 

If  you  meet  some  old,  gray-haired  and 
wrinkled  native  and  listen  to  his  yarns  and 
gossip  he  may  tell  you  that  he  can  remember 
when  the  old  tree  grew  far  back  on  the  grassy 
meadow;  he  may  talk  of  the  days  when  the 
nearby  hamlet  was  a  thriving  little  port,  and 
may  point  to  the  tumble-down  dock  and  tell 
of  the  craft  that  formerly  moored  beside  it. 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    153 

He  may  even  relate  how  his  grandfather  or 
great-grandfather  was  wrecked  upon  the  coast 
and  was  washed  upon  the  strange-shaped  pin- 
nacle of  rock  and  clung  there  all  night  long, 
while  the  angry  waves  dashed  about  him  and 
almost  tore  him  from  his  precarious  foothold. 
If  you  meet  such  an  old  man  who  can  re- 
member events  and  the  location  of  objects  for 
sixty  or  seventy  years  back,  you  will  be  in  luck, 
for  the  book  of  the  sea  has  been  written  under 
his  very  eyes  and  although  he  may  not  know 
it,  he  has  seen  many  a  page  of  the  ocean's  story 
completed  during  his  long  life.  The  old  tree 
which  formerly  stood  in  the  meadow  and  now 
topples  at  the  brink  of  the  waves  proves  that 
the  sea  has  gradually  eaten  into  the  land  and 
that  what  was  once  the  shore  is  now  far  be- 
neath the  waves.  The  dilapidated  dock,  high 
and  dry  above  the  tide,  shows  that  the  sea  has 
receded  and  is  forming  a  new  shore  from  what 
was  once  the  bed  of  the  ocean,  while  the 
carved,  rocky  point,  once  worn  and  cut  by 
wind  and  waves,  marks  a  former  coast-line 
and  its  height  above  the  present  sea  proves 
how  far  the  waters  have  receded  from  their 


154  THE  OCEAN 

former  limits.  You  marvel  how  this  can  be, 
how  the  sea  can  grow  smaller  in  one  spot  and 
can  grow  larger  and  deeper  in  another,  but  in 
reality  this  is  not  what  has  taken  place.  When 
we  say  the  sea  recedes  it  does  not  mean  that 
the  water  actually  becomes  less  in  the  ocean, 
and  when  we  say  the  sea  encroaches  on  the 
land  we  do  not  mean  that  the  ocean  really 
grows  larger,  for  when  it  is  extending  shore- 
ward in  one  spot  it  may  be  backing  away  from 
the  land  in  another  and  whether  it  does  one 
or  the  other  depends  a  great  deal  upon  the 
character  and  situation  of  the  land,  and  the 
wind. 

If  the  shore  is  flat,  low  and  sandy  a  heavy 
storm  may  cut  far  into  it  in  a  single  day  or 
a  night  and  the  breaking  waves  and  undertow 
may  carry  enormous  masses  of  material  into 
deep  water.  In  this  way  the  coast  line,  where 
sandy,  may  be  wonderfully  altered  in  a  few 
hours  and  a  cape  may  disappear  or  a  penin- 
sula be  cut  in  two  in  a  short  time.  The  sand, 
washed  away  from  the  shore,  may  be  carried 
far  out  to  sea  and  scattered  over  the  bottom  in 
deep  water  or  it  may  travel  but  a  short  dis- 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    155 

tance  and  then  pile  into  bars  or  shoals  which 
are  exposed  at  low  tide.  Gradually  more 
sand  may  wash  into  the  spaces  between  these 
bars  and  in  time  the  sandy  beach  may  stretch 
unbroken  for  a  far  greater  distance  than  be- 
fore the  sea  cut  away  the  shores.  Such  alter- 
nate cutting  and  filling  may  continue  for  years 
on  a  sandy  coast,  or  the  wind,  whipping  the 
loose  sand  into  hills,  may  form  dunes  which 
become  bound  together  with  growing  plants 
and  the  once-flat  beach  may  be  transformed 
into  a  coast  of  bluffs  and  hills  with  only  a 
narrow  strip  of  wave-washed  beach  along 
their  bases. 

If  the  shore  is  rocky  and  bold  the  storms 
may  undermine  the  cliffs  and  cause  great 
masses  to  fall  to  the  sea  where,  in  time,  they 
will  be  worn  and  ground  into  pebbles  and 
shingle  which  will  form  a  barrier  to  protect 
the  cliffs  above  from  further  damage.  If  the 
shores  are  muddy,  deep  channels  may  be  cut 
into  the  yielding  material  by  heavy  waves  and 
the  water,  filling  these,  may  leave  the  mud-flat 
exposed  to  dry  and  harden  and  in  time  be- 
come solid  land. 


156  THE  OCEAN 

All  these  changes  of  the  shore  are  caused 
by  the  action  of  wind  and  waves  alone,  but 
strange  as  it  may  seem  the  land  itself  is  grad- 
ually rising  or  falling  in  many  places  and  this 
also  greatly  affects  the  shores  of  the  sea.  If 
the  coast  is  high  and  precipitous  the  rise  or 
fall  of  a  few  inches  in  centuries  may  make  no 
appreciable  difference,  but  if  the  shore  is  low 
and  sandy  or  muddy  even  an  inch  or  two  in 
the  rise  or  fall  of  the  coast  land  may  result  in 
vast  changes,  for  in  many  places  the  wide 
mud-flats  and  extensive  sand-bars  are  only  an 
inch  or  two  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
water. 

As  you  walked  along  the  smooth  beach  or 
across  the  mud-flats  at  low  water,  you  noted 
the  wrinkly  lines  left  by  the  waves,  and  the  ir- 
regular trails  of  shells  and  small  animals,  and, 
if  you  glanced  behind  you,  no  doubt  you  saw 
the  deep  imprints  of  your  own  feet,  while  if  a 
sudden  shower  passed  over,  the  large  drops  of 
rain  made  queer  little  bowl-shaped  impres- 
sions on  the  sand  and  mud.  Afterwards  the 
tide  slowly  rose  and  covered  the  flat  or  beach 
with  water  and  when  the  tide  again  fell, — if 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    157 

you  had  looked  for  your  footprints  and  the 
marks  of  the  rain-drops  you  would  have  found 
they  had  disappeared.  Perhaps  they  were  act- 
ually destroyed  by  the  action  of  the  waves,  if 
the  sea  was  rough  or  the  wind  strong,  but  more 
likely  they  were  merely  filled  up  with  fine 
mud  or  sand  and  could  not  be  seen,  although 
still  remaining  in  the  material  beneath  the  new 
covering.  Again  and  again  the  tide  will  rise 
and  fall,  each  time  depositing  more  and  more 
silt  and  sand  over  your  footprints  and  the  rain- 
drops and  the  myriad  other  marks  until,  at 
some  distant  time,  many  feet  of  hard,  compact 
sand  and  mud  may  cover  the  smooth  surface 
whereon  your  footsteps  were  deeply  im- 
printed. Each  of  these  succeeding  layers  of 
material  bears  other  marks  and  each  is  a  page 
of  the  sea's  story  covering  the  one  beneath.  If, 
in  years  to  come,  you  could  carefully  turn  back 
each  of  these  mud  or  sand  pages  until  you  ex- 
posed the  one  upon  which  you  walked,  you 
would  doubtless  see  your  footprints  sur- 
rounded by  the  impressions  of  the  rain-drops 
and,  even  if  by  that  time  the  sea  had  receded 
and  the  flats  were  high  and  dry,  you  would 


158  THE  OCEAN 

know  that  the  marks  had  once  been  made  be- 
tween tides. 

Although  you  cannot  actually  accomplish 
this  in  the  soft  sand  and  mud  yet  you  can 
imagine  how  the  successive  layers  would  ap- 
pear if  they  were  so  hard  that  you  could  pull 
them  apart  to  reveal  the  marks  upon  them. 

This  is  exactly  what  the  scientists  have  done, 
for  through  the  countless  ages  since  the  world 
began  the  mud  and  sand  that  once  formed 
beaches  and  flats  has  been  hardened  into  stone, 
and  upon  these  rock  pages  of  the  sea's  story 
many  wonderful  things  are  inscribed. 

Each  layer  of  sand,  each  stratum  of  mud,  has 
formed  a  distinct  layer  of  rock,  and  oftentimes 
these  are  easily  separated  and  come  apart  in 
broad  sheets  or  slabs  covered  with  marvellous 
records  of  what  took  place  upon  the  seashores 
in  the  dim  ages  when  the  earth  was  young. 

Of  course  not  every  piece  of  sandstone 
shows  such  marks,  for  vast  areas  of  the  ancient 
shores  were  no  doubt  deserted  and  unmarred 
by  passing  creatures.  In  other  places  storms 
and  waves  washed  the  imprints  from  the  flats 
for  days,  months  and  years  before  a  layer  of 


PAGES  FROM  THE  SEA'S  STORY 

A  hove :  Fossil  shells  and  corals  once  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea 
Below  :  A  fossil  footprint  in  sandstone 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    159 

mud  or  sand  was  allowed  to  settle  and  form 
above  any  mark  which  had  been  made.  But 
in  the  deposits  of  sandstone  and  other  rocks, 
which  were  once  the  shores  of  the  sea,  we  find 
innumerable  numbers  of  the  little,  wavy  lines 
which  mark  the  lapping  wave-edges  while  the 
little  half-round  holes  made  by  falling  rain- 
drops are  very  common.  Here  and  there  we 
may  trace  the  irregular  track  of  a  tiny  snail  or 
mollusc,  while  in  some  places  the  rocks,  when 
split  apart,  reveal  hundreds  of  the  perfectly 
preserved  skeletons  of  fish.  Sometimes  the 
slabs  of  stone  show  still  more  wonderful  and 
remarkable  records  and  when  the  layers  are 
separated  they  disclose  great  three-toed  foot- 
prints; the  tracks  of  huge  cumbersome  crea- 
tures which  lumbered  across  the  sand-beaches 
and  mud-flats  in  the  prehistoric  days  and  left 
their  sharply-marked  trails  upon  the  smooth 
surface.  At  times  these  tracks  are  single  and 
apparently  made  by  one  animal,  while  at  other 
times  they  cross  and  recross  and  there  are 
tracks  of  various  sizes  showing  that  not  one 
but  many  animals  wandered  over  the  flats  be- 
tween tides.    These  things  all  prove  that  these 


i6o  THE  OCEAN 

creatures  existed  in  the  most  ancient  times  and 
by  innumerable  collections  and  careful  study, 
scientists  and  geologists  have  classified  the 
various  beasts,  fishes,  insects  and  other  crea- 
tures which  lived  in  those  days  and  can  trace 
their  ancestors  and  descendants,  and  even 
know  fairly  well  how  the  strange  creatures 
really  appeared  in  life.  It  is  an  easy  matter  to 
tell  which  forms  lived  first,  for,  of  course,  each 
layer  of  rock  covers  layers  that  were  made 
before  it  and  thus  the  deeper  the  layer  of  rock 
the  older  the  record  and  the  more  ancient  the 
creatures  which  made  the  tracks. 

These  are  only  one  kind  of  pages  from  the 
story  of  the  sea  and  beneath  the  waves  the 
chapters  are  also  being  written.  Here  the 
dead  and  dying  animals  are  constantly  accum- 
ulating and  are  being  covered  with  fine  mud, 
ooze  and  sand,  in  places  forming  deposits 
many  feet  in  depth.  Just  as,  through  the  vast 
lapse  of  time  which  has  passed  since  animal 
life  first  appeared  in  the  sea,  the  mud  and  sand 
of  the  shores  have  been  transformed  to  sand- 
stone and  shale,  so  the  ooze  and  dead  shells  at 
the  bottom  of  those  ancient  seas  have  been 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    i6i 

transformed  into  solid  rock.  While  the  shores 
formed  sandstone  or  slate,  because  of  the  ma- 
terial of  which  they  were  composed,  the  ma- 
terial at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  formed  lime- 
stone because  it  was  composed  mainly  of  lime 
from  the  myriads  of  tiny  shells  and  skeletons 
of  marine  animals. 

In  addition  to  shells  these  petrified  portions 
of  the  ocean's  bed  contain  corals,  worm-tubes, 
sea  urchins  and  various  other  forms  of  marine 
life,  many  of  which  no  longer  exist.  Some- 
times these  specimens  are  crowded  together 
into  a  mass  in  which  the  various  animals  are 
scarcely  distinguishable,  while  at  other  times 
they  are  separated  and  are  beautifully  pre- 
served. As  a  rule  the  fossils  are  much  harder 
than  the  surrounding  rock,  and  very  fre- 
quently the  softer  portions  have  been  decom- 
posed and  worn  away  through  exposure  to 
the  weather  for  countless  ages  and  the  shells 
and  similar  fossils  have  been  left  free  in  the 
earth,  clay  or  sand.  When  this  occurs  one 
may  often  find  specimens  of  shells  or  sea- 
urchins  so  perfect  in  every  detail  that  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  they  are  made  of  solid 


i62  THE  OCEAN 

stone  and  have  not  crawled  about  on  the  sea- 
shores for  millions  of  years. 

Many  such  fossils  are  found  in  the  sandy 
wastes  of  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  for  the  desert 
was  once  the  bed  of  an  immense  sea.  In  many 
parts  of  the  world  vast  deposits  of  this  shell- 
filled  limestone  occur  and  often  where  they 
are  far  distant  from  the  present  level  of  the 
sea.  This  proves  that  once  the  sea  covered 
these  portions  of  the  earth  where  the  fossil 
bottom  is  found  and  in  addition  it  is  often  pos- 
sible to  determine  whether  the  land  rose  and 
caused  the  sea  to  recede  gradually  or  rapidly. 

Very  often  these  beds  of  dead  shells  and 
other  marine  animals  are  hundreds  of  feet  in 
thickness,  showing  that  the  sea  remained 
above  such  places  for  ages  and  ages,  while  in 
other  localities  the  deposits  are  thin  and 
sparse,  showing  that  they  formed  the  bed  of 
the  sea  for  a  comparatively  short  time.  In 
some  places  they  are  smooth  and  in  even  lay- 
ers, proving  that  the  bed  of  the  sea  rose  slowly 
and  steadily  without  disturbing  the  accumula- 
tion at  the  bottom.  But  in  other  places  the 
layers  of  fossil  shells  are  twisted  and  bent. 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    163 

mixed  and  scattered,  and  show  every  evi- 
dence of  having  been  violently  thrown  up  and 
forced  out  of  place  by  subterranean  eruptions 
or  tremendous  earthquakes. 

Sometimes  these  ancient  sea-beds  are  found 
on  the  very  edge  of  the  present  shore,  at  other 
times  they  are  far  inland  on  high  land.  Some 
of  the  most  extensive  and  beautifully  pre- 
served are  in  the  interior  of  Canada,  others 
are  in  our  central  and  western  states,  others 
are  high  up  on  lofty  mountain  sides  and  others 
are  found  scattered  in  dry  and  arid  deserts. 

Moreover,  we  know  by  these  pages  of  the 
ocean's  book  that  in  former  ages  the  sea  was 
much  warmer  than  to-day,  for  many  tropical 
forms  of  animal  life  were  found  abundantly 
in  what  are  now  the  polar  regions.  Immense 
deposits  of  rock  composed  entirely  of  fossil 
corals  occur  in  many  northern  districts  far 
from  the  present  sea,  and  while  these  rocks 
may  at  first  sight  appear  utterly  unlike  coral 
and  may  look  like  ordinary  stone,  yet  when 
cut  and  polished  every  minute  detail  of  the 
coral  is  shown  to  perfection.  Of  course  the 
entire  bottom  of  the  sea  was  not  covered  with 


i64  THE  OCEAN 

dead  shells  and  similar  creatures  in  those  days 
any  more  than  it  is  all  covered  with  the  same 
sort  of  life  to-day.  There  were  vast  areas  of 
sandy  bottom,  immense  stretches  of  mud, 
cliffs,  rocks  and  coral  reefs,  and  each  and 
every  one  of  these  are  found  preserved  in  the 
form  of  solid  rock  to-day.  Here  and  there  in 
the  ancient  bed  of  the  sea,  which  is  now  dry 
land,  we  find  the  fossil  bones  of  great  sea- 
monsters;  huge  marine  lizards,  gigantic 
sharks,  strange  fish  and  species  of  whales  and 
similar  marine  mammals.  In  every  case  cer- 
tain kinds  of  fossils  are  found  associated,  and 
while  some  kinds  occur  through  various  de- 
posits covering  countless  ages,  and  some  are 
even  found  alive  to-day,  yet  in  most  cases 
each  existed  for  a  time,  to  be  succeeded 
by  others  slightly  different. 

By  such  means  scientists  may  trace  the 
gradual  transition,  the  slow  change  and  the 
inevitable  evolution  that  took  place  among  the 
denizens  of  the  sea.  It  is  in  this  way  that  we 
read  the  story  of  the  sea,  that  we  know  what 
manner  of  creatures  inhabited  it  in  ancient 
times,  that  we  know  how  inconceivably  an- 


THE  STORY  THE  SEA  TOLD    165 

cient  it  is  and  that  we  can  prove  that  while 
the  ocean  now  covers  three-fourths  of  the 
globe  there  was  once  a  time  when  it  swept 
unbroken  from  pole  to  pole  around  the  entire 
circumference  of  the  earth. 

Gradually  the  ocean  has  shrunk;  slowly  the 
land  has  risen  above  the  waves.  What  were 
once  great  seas  are  now  arid  deserts,  former 
gulfs  and  bays  are  now  fertile,  cultivated  val- 
leys, peaks  that  once  were  ocean  islets  are  now 
forest-covered  mountains,  and  the  sandy 
beaches  and  muddy  flats  which  have  been 
transformed  to  stone,  with  the  tracks  of 
strange  creatures  and  imprints  of  rain-drops 
still  intact,  are  quarried  from  our  hills  and 
used  to  build  our  houses,  flag  our  walks  and  to 
serve  as  doorsteps. 


Chapter  IX 

THE   BATTLE   BETWEEN   SEA 
AND  LAND 

Wherever  the  land  and  sea  meet  there  is  a 
constant  battle  for  supremacy.  This  battle  has 
been  going  on  since  the  world  began,  and 
through  the  countless  ages,  first  the  one  and 
then  the  other  has  won  in  the  everlasting  war- 
fare. 

In  a  way  this  battle  between  sea  and  land 
has  resembled  a  battle  bet\veen  human  armies. 
There  have  been  advances  and  retreats;  the 
earth  has  sometimes  been  upon  the  defensive, 
at  other  times  it  has  turned  and  taken  the  of- 
fensive; there  have  been  flank  movements, 
counter-attacks,  turning  movements  and  time 
and  again  both  the  land  and  the  sea  have  cut 
off  the  other's  line  of  retreat  and  have  cap- 
tured vast  amounts  of  the  enemy's  forces. 

Moreover,  both  the  sea  and  the  land  have 
their  allies  who  fight  and  work  with  them. 

l66 


BATTLE  OF  SEA  AND  LAND    167 

On  the  side  of  the  sea  is  the  wind,  the  ice  and 
the  tides,  while  earthquakes  also  lend  a  help- 
ing hand  at  times.  But  all  these  allies  of  the 
sea  are  fickle  and  are  liable  to  turn  about  and 
help  the  land  and  sometimes  they  even  fight 
among  themselves. 

This  battle  of  the  sea  and  land  is  the  longest 
war  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  for  it 
has  been  continuous  since  land  and  water  were 
first  formed,  and  doubtless  it  will  continue  as 
long  as  sea  and  land  exist  upon  our  planet. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  hopeless  sort  of  battle,  for 
neither  side  will  ever  win.  First  one  gains 
and  then  the  other,  and  while  the  sea  may  be 
constantly  gaining  in  one  portion  of  the  world 
it  may  be  losing  in  another  place.  It  is  an 
interesting  struggle,  and  one  which  we  may 
watch  in  perfect  safety  at  almost  any  point 
along  the  seacoast. 

Where  the  shores  are  sandy  the  line  of  bat- 
tle is  constantly  changing  and  within  a  few 
days,  or  even  hours,  either  the  sea  or  the  land 
may  gain  or  lose  many  yards.  On  rocky 
shores  the  battle  rages  just  as  furiously,  but  in 
such  places  the  land  forces  are  strongly  en- 


i68  THE  OCEAN 

trenched  and  fortified  and  there  is  less  ap- 
parent loss  or  gain  by  either  side. 

Wherever  the  sea  dashes  upon  a  sandy 
beach  it  pushes  the  sand  before  it  and  forms 
piles  or  ridges  of  sand  above  high  water  mark. 
As  this  dries  the  wind  catches  it  in  its  grasp, 
whirls  it  about  and  scatters  it  far  and  wide. 
If  the  wind  blows  off  shore  the  sand  may  be 
carried  out  to  sea  where  it  sinks  to  the  bottom 
and  forms  sand  bars,  flats,  or  banks.  In  time 
these  bars  or  banks  may  form  slender  capes 
or  peninsulas  which  cut  off  a  portion  of  the 
sea,  and  this  enclosed  water  may  become  grad- 
ually filled  with  sand  until  no  water  remains, 
and  where  the  sea  once  held  sway  there  will 
be  a  broad  level  or  hilly  stretch  of  sand-dunes. 
Even  the  sea  itself  may  prove  its  own  undoing 
when  it  attacks  a  sandy  shore,  for  the  under- 
tow of  the  waves  often  carries  out  sand  and 
mud  which  forms  bars  and  flats  and  forces  the 
sea  itself  farther  back. 

Wherever  the  wind  whips  up  the  sand  and 
blows  it  about  it  forms  hills  and  hollows,  often 
building  up  dunes  or  hills  many  feet  in  height. 
If  these  dunes  are  left  undisturbed  by  strong 


BATTLE  OF  SEA  AND  LAND    169 

winds  and  grass  and  weeds  take  root,  the  sand 
may  become  bound  and  held  together  by  the 
growing  vegetation  and  in  time  will  resist  the 
action  of  the  wind  and  will  form  solid  valu- 
able land.  In  many  places  vast  areas  of  land 
have  been  thus  formed  and  men  build  houses 
and  cultivate  their  crops  where,  in  former 
years,  the  sea  held  full  sway  and  ships  an- 
chored and  fishermen  plied  their  calling. 

In  other  spots  the  sea  has  cut  deep  into  the 
sandy  shores  and  to-day  there  are  deep  bays 
and  broad  harbours  where  in  former  times 
forests  of  pine  and  cedar  grew  and  villages 
stood  upon  the  sandy  soil. 

On  rocky  shores  the  wind  has  little  effect, 
but  the  resistless  waves  wear  away  the  cliffs, 
gradually  undermining  great  masses  which 
fall  to  the  beach  below  and  are  broken  into 
bits  and  worn  smooth  and  round  by  the  action 
of  the  waves.  In  such  places  the  ice  aids  the 
sea,  for  great  blocks  of  ice  dashed  against  the 
cliffs  act  like  titanic  hammers,  and  the  water, 
penetrating  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  and 
freezing,  forces  the  solid  cliffs  apart  like  blasts 
of  dynamite. 


170  THE  OCEAN 

In  such  situations  the  sea  often  encroaches 
slowly  but  surely  for  year  after  year,  and  the 
strong  rock-bound  coasts  prove  of  little  avail 
against  the  onslaughts  of  their  enemy. 

On  the  northern  coasts  of  Europe  the  rocky 
cliffs  are  receding  at  an  average  of  fifty  feet 
or  more  each  year,  and  every  season  portions 
of  the  farms  upon  the  cliff  tops  drop  in  frag- 
ments to  the  waves  far  below.  Houses  upon 
the  lands  above  the  cliffs  are  gradually  moved 
farther  and  farther  back  and  now  and  then 
some  building  is  left  too  near  the  edge  and 
some  violent  storm  carries  away  a  portion 
of  the  cliff  with  the  building  upon  its  summit. 
On  the  coast  of  California,  and  in  many  other 
places,  the  same  gradual  inroads  of  the  sea  are 
taking  place,  and  within  the  memory  of  man 
a  mile  or  more  of  solid,  rocky  coast  has  been 
won  by  the  sea.  Sometimes  the  masses  torn 
from  the  land  by  the  waves  prove  a  barrier  to 
prevent  further  progress  of  the  sea,  while  at 
other  times  the  forces  of  nature  have  raised 
the  land  beyond  the  reach  of  tide  and  wave, 
and  have  won  back  in  a  short  time  more  than 
the  sea  gained  in  centuries. 


BATTLE  OF  SEA  AND  LAND     171 

This  may  seem  strange  at  first,  for  we  com- 
monly think  of  the  seashore  as  at  a  constant 
level,  but  in  reality  the  elevation  of  the  coasts 
is  ever  changing.  In  one  place  it  may  rise 
slowly  through  many  centuries  and  in  another 
it  may  slowly  sink.  At  other  times  a  portion 
of  the  coast  may  rise  in  a  short  time  for  many 
feet,  and  on  the  other  hand  a  single  earth- 
quake or  volcanic  eruption  may  cause  a  por- 
tion of  the  coast  to  sink  far  beneath  the  level 
of  the  sea. 

Even  large  islands  at  times  sink  suddenly 
beneath  the  sea  without  warning  and  many 
people  believe  that  the  wonderful  continent  of 
Atlantis  really  existed  in  ancient  times  and 
was  submerged  by  some  great  cataclysm  of 
this  sort.  We  have  no  proof  of  this,  but  we 
do  know  that  islands  and  large  portions  of 
continents  have  disappeared  in  this  way. 
Some  of  these  catastrophes  took  place  ages 
ago,  before  man  inhabited  the  earth,  while 
others  have  occurred  within  comparatively  re- 
cent times  and  even  within  the  memory  of  liv- 
ing men. 

Off  the  coast  of  Yucatan  is  a  little  island 


172  THE  OCEAN 

called  Cozumel,  a  beautiful  tropical  islet  al- 
most unknown  to  the  outside  world,  but  won- 
derfully interesting  to  scientists.  Here  are 
numerous  ruins  of  ancient  Indian  temples  and 
many  great  carved  statues  or  monoliths  exact- 
ly like  those  found  upon  the  mainland  of  Yu- 
catan and  Central  America.  This  has  led 
many  scientists  to  believe  that  Cozumel  was 
once  a  portion  of  Yucatan  itself,  and  this 
theory  is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  on  the 
shores  of  Yucatan  an  ancient  pathway  of  stone 
disappears  beneath  the  sea  and  a  similar  path- 
way is  found  upon  Cozumel  also  leading  up 
from  beneath  the  waves.  If,  as  supposed,  the 
land  once  extended  unbroken  between  the 
mainland  and  the  island  great  populous  cities 
may  have  been  engulfed  when  the  sea  won  its 
battle  and  swept  victoriously  above  the  forests 
and  the  land.  Perchance,  if  we  could  explore 
these  ruins  far  beneath  the  waves,  we  might 
find  the  long-lost  secrets  of  the  ancient  people 
who  once  lived  in  Yucatan  and  built  the  mar- 
vellous buildings  found  deep  within  the  jun- 
gle. No  one  has  ever  been  able  to  explain 
why  these  buildings  and  cities  were  suddenly 


BATTLE  OF  SEA  AND  LAND    173 

deserted,  why  great  statues  and  enormous 
buildings  were  left  half  finished,  why  there 
is  no  key  to  the  strange  hieroglyphics  that 
cover  the  buildings  and  monuments  with  in- 
scriptions. 

Perchance  the  same  subterranean  forces 
which  submerged  the  coasts,  and  caused  the 
sea  to  flow  between  the  island  and  the  main- 
land, destroyed  thousands  of  the  inhabitants 
and  forced  them  to  flee  in  terror  from  their 
half-completed  labours. 

Could  we  but  visit  that  sunken  land  who 
knows  but  we  might  discover  a  key — a  sort  of 
Rosetta  Stone — by  which  we  could  read  the 
story  of  the  marvellous  civilisation  that  held 
sway  in  Central  America  countless  ages  before 
any  white  man  trod  the  shores  of  our  conti- 
nent. 

It  would  be  interesting  indeed  to  visit  these 
submerged  cities, — if  they  exist, — and  while 
we  cannot  do  this,  yet  in  other  places  we  may 
look  down  through  the  water  upon  cities 
which  once  stood,  stately  and  populous,  upon 
the  solid  earth. 

At  the  island  of  Nevis  is  the  sunken  city  of 


174  THE  OCEAN 

Jamestown,  once  the  capital  of  the  island  and 
a  wealthy  and  flourishing  town.  On  April 
30,  1680,  the  island  was  visited  by  an  earth- 
quake and  the  busy  town  slipped  without 
warning  into  the  sea,  carrying  with  it  its  pop- 
ulace and  its  riches. 

To-day  one  may  row  above  the  ancient  town 
and  looking  downward  through  the  crystalline 
water,  gaze  upon  old  houses,  stone  walls, 
church  towers  and  paved  streets  far  beneath. 
The  stonework  is  covered  deep  in  coral 
growth,  great  masses  of  weeds  and  corals 
spring  from  the  once-busy  streets,  fishes  of 
gorgeous  colours  flit  through  ruined  doors  and 
windows,  and  great  lobsters,  crabs  and  octopi 
lurk  in  the  halls  and  rooms  that  once  echoed 
to  laughter  and  music. 

It  is  sad  to  think  of  such  things,  of  the  loss 
of  life  and  property,  the  suffering  and  terror 
that  occur  when  the  sea  wins  and  swallows 
the  land  and  its  inhabitants  in  this  way,  but 
sometimes  such  catastrophes  seem  guided  by  a 
divine  justice  and  benefit  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Such  was  the  destruction  of  Port 
Royal  in  Jamaica.     In  the  days  of  the  Buc- 


BATTLE  OF  SEA  AND  LAND     175 

caneers  Port  Royal  was  the  favoured  rendez- 
vous of  the  pirates  and  freebooters  that 
scoured  the  Spanish  Main  seeking  booty  and 
loot.  To  Port  Royal  they  returned  after  their 
voyages  and  in  the  halls  and  taverns  held  high 
revels.  Here  they  gathered  vast  stores  of 
wealth  and  treasures  won  by  bloodshed  and 
destruction  from  far  and  near,  until  Port 
Royal  became  known  as  the  richest  place  in 
the  world.  It  was  here  that  Sir  Henry  Mor- 
gan held  forth.  Here  he  had  his  home,  and 
here  he  spent  his  ill-gotten  gains  from  the  sack 
of  Panama,  Cartagena,  Porto  Bello  and  count- 
less captured  ships. 

It  was  a  city  of  wealth,  of  unbridled  pas- 
sions, of  vice  and  wild  revelry,  but  suddenly 
it  was  ended  without  warning;  the  stronghold 
of  the  pirates  was  wiped  out  on  June  7,  1692, 
when  Port  Royal  slipped  into  the  bay  and  was 
buried  beneath  the  waves,  and  the  power  of 
the  freebooters  was  brought  to  a  fitting  end. 
Of  the  three  thousand  houses  but  two  hundred 
remained  above  the  sea,  and  of  the  wild,  reck- 
less inhabitants  but  a  handful  remained  to  tell 
the  tale.    Even  these  were  cowed,  frightened 


176  THE  OCEAN 

and  so  impressed  with  the  swift  and  terrible 
punishment  which  had  overtaken  their  fellows 
that  they  moved  across  the  bay,  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  Kingston  and  settled  down  to  lives 
of  commerce,  agriculture  and  honesty. 

Perchance  at  some  distant  time,  or  perhaps 
within  a  month  or  a  week,  another  convulsion 
of  nature  will  raise  these  sunken  cities  above 
the  sea.  Once  more  men  may  walk  through 
the  long-silent  and  deserted  streets  and  may 
again  take  possession  of  the  gold  and  treasure 
so  long  buried  beneath  the  waters  of  the  vic- 
torious sea. 


Chapter  X 

HUMAN  LIFE  UNDER  THE  SEA 

From  earliest  times  man  has  longed  to  see  the 
depths  of  the  sea  and  to  walk  about  upon  its 
bottom.  In  every  age  and  in  nearly  every  land 
expert  divers  and  swimmers  may  be  found 
who  can  penetrate  to  wonderful  depths  and 
can  remain  below  the  surface  for  remarkable 
periods  of  time,  but  none  has  ever  existed 
who  could  dive  deep  enough  or  remain  long 
enough  under  water  to  walk  about  and  note 
the  marvellous  sights  below  the  waves. 

Wonderful  stories  are  told  of  men  who  dive 
to  the  depth  of  one  hundred  feet  and  remain 
under  water  for  five  minutes  or  more,  but 
these  are  all  exaggerations  and  no  man  has 
ever  lived  who  could  accomplish  such  feats. 

In  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  Orient,  in  the 

South  Seas,  in  the  West  Indies  and  in  many 

other  places  there  are  scores  of  men  who  make 

diving  a  business  and  depend  for  a  livelihood 

177 


178  THE  OCEAN 

upon  their  ability  to  dive  to  great  depths  and 
to  remain  under  water  for  a  long  time.  But 
none  of  these  is  able  to  remain  below  the 
surface  for  over  three  minutes  or  to  reach  a 
greater  depth  than  forty  or  fifty  feet.  Time 
is  a  deceptive  matter  and  while  a  man  may 
appear  to  be  below  water  for  five  or  ten  min- 
utes, yet  if  we  time  him  by  a  watch  we  find 
he  is  only  there  two  minutes  or  so. 

It  is  an  interesting  matter  to  watch  one  of 
these  men  at  work,  to  look  through  the  clear 
tropical  sea  and  see  the  brown-skinned  body 
shoot  downward  through  the  water,  to  see  the 
dim,  far-away  form  walk  about,  pick  up  ob- 
jects from  the  floor  of  the  sea  and  then  rise  like 
a  cork  to  the  surface.  Sometimes  the  divers 
work  head-down,  prying,  cutting  or  digging 
the  sponges,  corals,  or  pearl  shells  from  their 
homes  upon  the  bottom.  At  such  times  the 
watcher  from  above  may  see  the  diver's  feet, 
soles-up  and  presenting  a  wonderfully  curious 
sight  as  the  owner  works  with  his  hands  at  the 
treasures  of  the  sea  below  him. 

Sometimes  a  diver  will  go  below  with  a 
crowbar  and  a  rope  and  far  beneath  the  sur- 


HUMAN  LIFE  UNDER  SEA    179 

face  will  work  away  as  unconcernedly  as  if  on 
dry  land. 

In  some  countries  the  people  seem  to  take 
naturally  to  the  sea  and  are  born  divers.  In 
the  South  Seas  the  natives  are  wonderfully  ex- 
pert and  dive  and  swim  like  fish  from  earliest 
childhood,  and  in  the  West  Indies  the  negro 
boys  are  as  much  at  home  in  the  water  as  upon 
the  land. 

Whenever  a  steamer  arrives  in  a  West  In- 
dian port  it  is  immediately  surrounded  by 
hosts  of  black,  brown,  and  yellow  boys  all 
clamouring  for  coins  to  be  tossed  overboard 
so  they  can  dive  for  them. 

Seldom  indeed  is  a  coin  missed,  and,  as  a 
rule,  the  diver  clutches  the  coin  long  before  it 
reaches  the  bottom.  Sometimes  the  passen- 
gers toss  coins  over  the  opposite  side  of  the 
ship  and  the  boys,  diving  beneath  the  keel, 
catch  them  before  they  touch  bottom.  In 
West  Indian  and  other  tropical  seas  the  water 
is  marvellously  transparent  and  the  diving 
boys  may  be  watched  as  they  swim  and  dive 
after  the  coins,  twisting,  turning,  somersault- 
ing and  even  fighting  among  themselves  under 


i8o  THE  OCEAN 

the  water.  Many  of  these  men  and  boys  are 
so  expert  that  for  a  small  sum  they  will  dive 
into  shark-infested  spots  and  with  knife  in 
hand  attack  and  kill  these  great  man-eaters. 
Such  duels  between  man  and  fish  are  ex- 
tremely exciting,  but  it  is  seldom  that  the 
shark  gets  the  best  of  the  encounter,  for  the 
man's  superior  intelligence,  his  knowledge  of 
the  shark's  habits  and  his  skill  in  diving  and 
swimming  enable  him  to  dive  beneath  the 
great  fish  where  a  thrust  of  the  knife  can  be 
delivered  in  safety. 

In  order  to  reach  greater  depths  and  to  re- 
main longer  under  water  man  has  for  cen- 
turies attempted  to  devise  means  of  diving  in 
comfort  beneath  the  sea.  One  of  the  earliest 
and  most  practical  inventions  was  the  Diving 
Bell.  This  consisted  of  a  great  metal,  or 
wooden  chamber  of  more  or  less  bell-like 
form,  which  was  lowered  beneath  the  water 
and  within  which  human  beings  could  remain 
safely  at  considerable  depths.  If  you  place 
a  glass,  or  a  tumbler,  upside  down  over  a  dish 
or  a  basin  of  water  and  push  it  to  the  bottom 
you  will  see  that  the  water  does  not  fill  the 


HUMAN  LIFE  UNDER  SEA    i8i 

glass  but  that  a  quantity  of  air  remains  within 
the  tumbler  above  the  water. 

The  diving  bell  operates  in  a  similar  man- 
ner, and  the  air  contained  in  the  bell  enables 
the  occupants  to  remain  dry  and  comfortable 
after  the  bell  is  lowered  to  the  bed  of  the  sea. 
Unfortunately  diving  bells  have  limitations, 
for  as  the  pressure  of  the  water  increases  with 
the  depth  the  air  within  the  bell  is  compressed 
more  and  more  until  a  point  is  reached  where 
man  cannot  withstand  the  pressure. 

In  time  better  methods  and  the  discovery  of 
rubber  led  to  the  construction  of  diving-suits 
and  to-day  these  are  the  commonest  and  most 
widely  used  of  all  devices  to  enable  man  to 
visit  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  diver,  clad 
in  a  diving-suit  of  rubber,  with  heavy  lead- 
soled  boots,  great  metal  weights  on  his  chest 
and  at  his  belt  and  with  fresh  air  forced  by 
an  air-pump  through  a  hose  from  above,  is 
able  to  walk  about  upon  the  bed  of  the  sea  and 
to  remain  under  water  for  a  long  time.  By 
means  of  the  diving-suit  wrecks  are  raised, 
treasure  is  recovered,  pearls,  sponges  and 
other  marine  products  are  gathered,  pipes  and 


iSz  THE  OCEAN 

foundations  are  laid  and  other  submarine 
work  is  carried  on  and  much  is  done  under 
water  which  could  never  be  accomplished  in 
any  other  manner.  But  even  with  a  diving- 
suit  man  is  still  limited  in  his  work  beneath 
the  sea,  for  the  pressure  of  the  water  affects  the 
man  in  the  suit  just  as  it  affects  the  men  in  the 
diving  bell  or  the  naked  diver  of  the  tropics. 
In  order  to  force  the  air  down  to  the  diver  in 
his  suit  the  pressure  at  the  pump  must  be 
greater  than  the  pressure  of  the  water  where 
the  diver  stands,  and  hence  a  point  is  soon 
reached  where  the  pressure  is  so  great  that 
human  flesh  and  lungs  cannot  stand  it  and 
death  would  result  if  it  should  be  maintained. 

Some  men  are  able  to  withstand  far  greater 
pressures  than  others  and  are  sufficiently  ac- 
customed to  diving  to  remain  under  water  for 
longer  periods  than  their  fellows,  but  the  best 
and  most  experienced  diver  in  the  world  can 
only  remain  below  for  a  comparatively  short 
time  and  can  only  penetrate  to  depths  of 
twelve  to  twenty  fathoms  with  safety. 

With  the  construction  of  successful  sub- 
marine boats  man  made  a  marvellous  advance 


HUMAN  LIFE  UNDER  SEA    183 

in  his  conquest  of  the  ocean's  depths,  and 
while  no  submarine  has  yet  been  built  which 
can  approach  Jules  Verne's  "Nautilus,"  yet 
wonderful  records  have  been  made  by  these 
underwater  craft. 

Unfortunately  submarines  have  proved  of 
far  greater  value  in  destroying  human  life 
than  in  saving  it,  and  so  far  have  resulted  in 
far  more  harm  than  good  to  mankind.  Many 
attempts  have  been  made  to  build  submarine 
boats  provided  with  lights,  windows  and  other 
appliances  for  exploring  the  bed  of  the  sea 
and  wonderful  claims  have  been  made  by  the 
inventors  of  such  craft.  They  have  dwelt 
upon  the  vast  numbers  of  rich  wrecks  lying 
upon  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  the  wonderful 
natural  wealth  of  the  sea  which  no  diver  can 
reach,  and  they  have  described  how  all  such 
things  could  be  found  and  gathered  in  by 
means  of  their  inventions,  but  in  each  and 
every  case  insurmountable  obstacles  have  been 
met  which  have  not  yet  been  overcome. 

No  one  can  say  a  submarine  may  not  be  built 
which  will  enable  man  to  visit  the  ocean's  bed, 
to  search  its  recesses  and  discover  its  hidden 


i84  THE  OCEAN 

riches  and  when  such  a  craft  is  constructed 
man  will  indeed  have  conquered  the  depths 
of  the  sea.  But  even  now  submarines  are 
really  marvellous.  They  have  navigated  for 
hours  beneath  the  surface,  they  have  dived 
to  over  one  hundred  feet  and  have  remained 
upon  the  bottom  for  an  entire  day  and  have 
risen  again  to  the  surface  with  their  crews  safe 
and  uninjured.  They  have  penetrated  the 
ports  of  enemies  and  have  destroyed  huge  war- 
ships and  have  escaped  in  safety  and  have 
swept  swiftly  beneath  powerful  explosive 
mines,  torpedoed  hostile  ships  and  returned  to 
their  waiting  friends  after  being  under  water 
for  many  hours. 

Until  the  great  European  war  no  one  real- 
ised the  possibilities  of  submarines,  but  now 
that  warfare  has  demonstrated  their  power, 
value  and  efficiency,  much  greater  attention 
will  be  devoted  to  them.  In  the  future  sub- 
marines may  prove  as  valuable  in  peace  as  in 
war,  and  sooner  or  later  the  "Nautilus"  may 
become  a  thing  of  reality  instead  of  fiction  and 
the  time  may  yet  come  when  great  passenger 
ships  will  cross  and  recross  the  oceans  beneath 


HUMAN  LIFE  UNDER  SEA    185 

the  surface  of  the  sea  and  far  below  the  reach 
of  storms  and  waves.  We  may  yet  be  able  to 
take  submarine  tours  to  the  pearl  beds,  coral 
groves  and  marine  gardens  of  the  tropics,  and 
man  may  yet  realise  his  ambition  to  explore 
the  depths  of  the  sea,  to  look  upon  its  strange 
life  and  to  solve  its  great  mysteries. 


INDEX 


Arctic  Currents,  30,  34 
Atolls,  140 
Australian  Current,  33 

B 

Bell-buoy,  93 

Benguela  Current,  33 

Black-Swallower,    106 

"Boilers,"  141 

Bores,  66 

Brazilian  Current,  32,  33 

Buoys,  80 


Diver,   178-179,   181-182 
Diving-bell,   180-181 
Doldrums,  24,  25,  36 
Dredges,  100,  103 
Dredging,  5 
Drisko,  42 
Dugongs,   147 


East  Australian  Current,  32, 

33 
Eskimo  Joe,  59 


Charts,  80,  89,  90 
Collisions,  42,  43 
Conger  Eels,  131 
Continental  Shelf,  6,  7,  8 
Coral  Islands,  11,  140 
Coral-reefs,  9,  11,  139 
Corals,  9,  10,  II,  136,  140,  163 
Coral-trees,   139 
Corposants,  37 
Cumulative  Waves,  69 


Flying  Dutchman,  37,  38 
Fogs,  50,  SI 
Fossils,  161,  163 


Gas-buoy,  86 

Gorgonias,  136 

Growler,  52 

Gulf   Stream,   18  et  seq.,  31, 

32,  34,  42 
Gulf  Stream  Slope,  8 


Deep  Sea  Fishes,  103,  108 
Derelicts,  38,  39,  etc. 


H 

Hurricanes,  71-73 


187 


1 88 


INDEX 


Icebergs,  49  et  seq. 
Ice  Patrol  Boats,  52 
Iron  Buoys,  86 


Octopus,  104 
Ooze,  12,  14,   IS,  126 
Ooze,  Foraminiferous,  126 
Ooze,  Globigerina,  126 


Japan  Stream,  32,  34 

K 

Kraken,  11 7- 120 


Perigee  Tides,  64 
Pilot  Charts,  89 
Polaris,  U.  S.  S.,  58 
Porpoises,  144 


Labrador  Current,  54 
Life  Saving  Station,  96-98 
Lighthouses,  80-86,  93,  96 
Lighthouse  Tender,  83 
Lightships,  80-85,  93,  96 

M 

Maelstrom,  78 
Manatees,  147 
Mozambique  Current,  33 

N 

Narwhals,  144 
Neap  Tides,  64 
Northeast  Trades,  24 


Ocean  Bed,  5,  10 
Ocean    Currents,    17  et  seq., 
29,  30 


Rain  of  Frogs,  77 
Ribbon  Fish,  112 


St.  Elmo's  Fire,  37 

Sargassum,  22 

Sargasso  Sea,  23 

Scylla  and  Charybdis,  78 

Sea  Bears,  147 

Sea  Cows,  148 

Sea  Elephants,  147 

Sea  Lions,  147 

Sea  Serpent,  11,  16,  119 

Seaweeds,  136 

Serpulae,    141 

Serpuline  Atolls,   140 

Sharks,   no,   113 

Shore,  150  et  seq.,  166  et  seq, 

Seminole,  69 

Showers  of   Fish,  77 

Southeast  Trades,  25 

Spar-Buoy,  95 

Sponges,  135,  136 


INDEX 


189 


Spring  Tides,  64 
Squids,  104,  118 
Submarine,  182 


Tangles,  101-103 

Tidal  Waves,  61, 66, 69, 71 

Tide  Rips,  78 

Tides,  60  et  seq. 

Tigress,  59 

Tile  Fish,  120 

Titanic,  49 

Trade  Oouds,  24 

Trade  Winds,  24,  28,  30,  36 

Trawls,  100 


U 

U.  S.  Fish  Commission,  100 

W 

Walrus,  147 
Waterspouts,  74-75 
Waves,  66,  69 
Whales,   143-147 
Whales,  Baleen,  145 
Whales,  Right,  145,  146 
Whales,  Sperm,  146 
Whistling  Buoy,  93 
Wolston,    Schooner    Fannie 

E.,  45,  47 
Wrecks,  40  et  seq. 


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